Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. I do not know the actual number of how many hundreds or thousands of rabbis are in this particular organization. It is a national organization of rabbis. The American Conference of Jews and Blacks, the American Muslim Network, those are some of the non- Christian groups. And of course there are many that are Christian groups, and we would expect that of course because that is the faith of most Americans.

Mr. ISTOOK. I do not have the full list with me, but for example we have an organization of Jewish rabbis which is called Toward Tradition.

Mr. ISTOOK. And those of many other faiths as well.

Mr. ISTOOK. A beautiful, moving document.

Mr. ISTOOK. Let us hope that there are some special places above for many of us as well.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I think the first thing of course that we all need is perspective on it, because frequently I find that some people want to construct what they think is a trap. They will first say, oh, the Religious Freedom Amendment is only meant to enthrone the rights and the beliefs of a majority of Americans, and therefore to suppress those who may not be among the majority in their beliefs. They are wrong in what they assert because obviously we are trying to be evenhanded. Then they take the other side of the argument and they say, oh, well, if that is the case then it is also bad because there may be some people, such as the gentleman described, whose practices are distasteful to others. And, therefore, they say no matter which way we go, they are against it. The real agenda of course of such persons is they just are not tolerant toward other people's faith in prayer, whether in the minority or majority. But in a situation such as the gentleman described, the perspective to understand is that there may be some very rare and isolated occasions when someone may wish to offer a prayer that others will find distasteful. But should we say that because there will be very, very rare occasions of that, therefore we must suppress and stifle and censor the millions and millions of positive, uplifting prayers of hope, of vision, of seeking for faith and seeking for guidance in the day? It is sort of like having free speech in our society. In fact, it is a parallel to free speech in our society. We all recognize that part of the price of free speech is there will be occasions when someone does not go into the bounds of pornography, which is illegal, but does get into the bounds of tastelessness and offensive speech that nevertheless we recognize is protected. The same is true of religious expression. And I would submit that actually the cases such as the gentleman has described of someone who has something that is distasteful to others, and of course they can choose if they wish, if something is that distasteful to them, if they want to leave the room or something that is fine. Like I say, it would be a very, very, very rare occasion. But those cases usually have already been protected by Supreme Court decisions. There is one, for example, protecting the Santeria religion that involves animal sacrifice. I believe the case involved the City of Hialeah, which said a community could not outlaw the way they were killing animals as part of their sacrificial rituals because that was protected by freedom of religion. That is under the First Amendment as it is now. But the same Supreme Court does not wish to protect majority faiths. They have ruled against a cross, for example, in a city park in San Francisco that has been there for 65 years. They say that has to come down, a cross being included among numerous symbols on the seal of the City of Edmond, Oklahoma, in my district, similar rulings in Oregon and Hawaii, in Stowe, Ohio, against the inclusion of a Christian emblem among multiple other emblems and they say that is unconstitutional, yet that same Supreme Court has said that a Nazi swastika is constitutionally protected. That was in a case in Skokie, Illinois, where the American Nazis were walking through the street with the swastika and the Court ruled that the symbol of hate is constitutional, but the symbol of hope is unconstitutional.

Mr. ISTOOK. I am sorry?

Mr. ISTOOK. Sure. Certainly we recognize that different children will have different levels of maturity; and it is not something, of course, when we talk about people that may feel sometimes like they are not necessarily part of a group, it may not be religion. It may be how people dress, it may be how people look, it may be how people talk, it may be the shoes they wear, it may be what type of music they choose for listening. It can be all sorts of things. I think that we do a disservice if we say that we know that children are going to have differences among them in other respects and that part of learning and part of growing is understanding that there are differences and learning to cope with those, but if we set apart religion and say, but if it is a religious difference, that is somehow a threatening topic, and that we must protect children from knowing that there are some differences. I think we need to look at the words of a Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart. I am going to paraphrase him; I have the exact quote, but not in front of me. When he was talking about this discussion, when he dissented from what the Supreme Court did, from what his fellow justices did, and he said several interesting things. One of them was that we cannot expect children to learn about diversity, to learn that different people will have different beliefs and different faiths, if we try to isolate them and shield them from that knowledge until they are adults, as though it were some type of dangerous activity or something that is reserved for adults. If we do that, he says, we will foster in people the belief that this is something that is threatening, that it is something that needs to be pushed aside and pushed away or kept in a corner, rather than something that should be understood. Basically, we are teaching intolerance at an early age if we tell people it has to be suppressed rather than respected when they have those differences, and that is where the schools should properly show the proper respect, whether they say, well, different people have had a chance and this person does it a little differently and we ought to respect that and learn from it. That is how we learn tolerance and diversity.

Mr. ISTOOK. Certainly.

Mr. ISTOOK. Okay.

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. 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

Mr. ISTOOK. We have a couple Popes on the wall of the House Chamber.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, tonight I am going to be talking about a very important issue that is coming before this House in approximately a month, that being the Religious Freedom Amendment. Mr. Speaker, I will submit a copy of a detailed analysis of the proposed constitutional amendment which I will provide to the Clerk, to be printed and included in the Record. The Religious Freedom Amendment, known as House Joint Resolution 78, is responding to the public's very valid concern for the last generation that the courts in the United States of America have become hostile to religion. They have placed barriers to religious expression which do not exist for other forms of speech for free speech. A false standard has been created by the courts basically saying, well, if everyone is not unanimous in agreeing on some religious topic, then we ought to be censoring it, if it is something like a prayer in a public school during the school hours or the football game or at a graduation. In the next 30 days or so, Mr. Speaker, all across America we are going to have students graduating from high school, and in some places from college, and they will usually want what has become an American tradition, or was until the Supreme Court interfered, namely having a simple prayer to begin or to close or both at a public school graduation. In fact, it is a tradition. The earliest recorded public school graduation in the United States, according to the Supreme Court, featured a prayer. In fact, multiple prayers. But the Supreme Court has basically taken a stand and said if everybody does not agree, then we ought to censor it, because they say we do not want to have an establishment of religion created. Or some people use a catch phrase, and I will talk about this more, Mr. Speaker, use a catch phrase of saying, well, it would violate the wall of separation between church and State, which is not a phrase found in the American Constitution. It is a phrase that has been put in by other people for other purposes and often, rather than quoting the Constitution itself, people cite that phrase as though it explained everything. What does the Constitution say? ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' The Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and other religious issues have been provoking public outrage since 1962. We have not had a vote here in the House of Representatives since 1971 on a proposal to correct the Supreme Court by amending the Constitution to provide for voluntary school prayer, and to reinstate other protections in religious expression which used to be common in the U.S.A. until approximately 36 years ago. Mr. Speaker, the text of the proposed amendment has been approved by the House's Subcommittee on the Constitution. It has been approved by the House Committee on the Judiciary. It is ready to come to this floor and will be coming to the floor soon. Let me quote, Mr. Speaker. It reads thusly: 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. And of course under the normal process it is proposed that two-thirds of the House approve this amendment, two-thirds of the Senate approve, and then during a seven-year window of opportunity it would require ratification by the necessary three-fourths of the State legislatures. That, of course, is the process that was created by the Founding Fathers to amend the Constitution, and indeed it has been amended before to correct erroneous Supreme Court decisions. For example, the Dred Scott decision back in the middle of the last century provoked a lot of outrage with its decision that basically was in favor of slavery, and that was corrected by a later amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people today, and I think the media has a great deal to do with this misleading, because we will find in the press too a lot of people are told, well, the issue is separation of church and State. Mr. Speaker, we could talk among ourselves and say, well, what does that term mean? But I think that it is instructive to look at what the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, our current Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, has said about the use of this term, which he said has been used to mislead people about what the Constitution actually says and what the Founding Fathers actually intended when it comes to religious freedom. Justice Rehnquist, our Chief Justice, has written in official Supreme Court opinion that the use of that term should be ``frankly and explicitly abandoned.'' Those are his words. ``It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.'' Why? Because it has not been used to promote neutrality toward religion, but it has been used to promote hostility. Essentially, it has been used to say that if government is present, then religion must be absent. So if government comes into a situation, religion must be pushed out and pushed aside. Mr. Speaker, when we have the growth of government where it is with us in every aspect of our lives today, in schools, in something involving health care, in so many bodies that are created as public bodies, and we are told, ``My goodness, this is a government-funded activity. You cannot have a prayer to open or close, or we feel hesitant if you involve your religious beliefs in sharing your opinion.'' For example, a first grade student in Medford, New Jersey, in the last year was told by a Federal judge that even though he won a contest, a reading contest, and could read whatever story he wanted, because he chose a story from the Beginner's Bible, the school said, ``Oh, no, you cannot read that at school,'' and the Federal judge said, ``That is right. You cannot read that at school,'' and cited as his mantra what Justice Rehnquist has condemned, separation of church and State. In Florida, in Fort Myers, Florida, they said they wanted to have a course not teaching doctrine but teaching about religion. And so they were going to have aspects of the course that dealt with the Bible as history, which is something that is supposed to be expressly approved, many people think, as long as it is taught as history. But the Federal judge in Florida ruled that they could teach about the Old Testament as history, but they could not teach anything about the New Testament because not everybody believes in the resurrection. So the Bible even as literature was singled out by a Federal judge. Why? Because they are following the standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court, standards not of neutrality but, unfortunately, to promote hostility. Our courts blaze a wayward trail because they use a broken compass. Let me tell you, it was in the case of Wallace v. Jaffree that Chief Justice Rehnquist made his remarks about his little catch phrase, ``separation of church and state.'' This was an opinion, it came down from the Supreme Court in 1985 in Alabama. Because they were so upset with the effort of the courts to strip prayer out of the public schools, they passed a law that said, let us have a moment of silence, a moment of silence at public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the moment of silence was unconstitutional because it could be used for silent prayer. A lot of Americans are not aware of that, Mr. Speaker. They do not know that the Supreme Court has gone so far as to say if you have a moment of silence, that is unconstitutional, because people could be offering a silent prayer. Now, if that is not an outrage, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what is. The Chief Justice was outraged by what five of the Justices did. It was a 5-4 decision. He was so outraged, and he wrote about it, and he talked about what they had said and the error of it. For example, the originator of the phrase ``wall of separation between church and state'' is usually said to be Thomas Jefferson. But as Chief Justice Rehnquist noted in his opinion, and I quote here, ``It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history; but unfortunately, the establishment clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years. Thomas Jefferson was, of course, in France at the time the constitutional amendment known as the Bill of Rights was passed by Congress and ratified by the States.'' The person that originated that phrase was not involved in drafting the first amendment. So the Chief Justice said clearly in the Wallace v. Jaffree opinion, and I quote him again, ``The establishment clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion, nor did it prohibit the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build the wall of separation.'' As Justice Rehnquist said, the evil that they wanted to address was from proposals to establish an official national church, or an official religion, because we do not want that in the United States of America. But he said, the Congress clearly intended to have a positive attitude toward religion. Then the Chief Justice said that this so-called wall of separation is actually what he labeled a blurred and distinct and variable barrier. He called it a metaphor based on bad history. In his words, quoting again, ``A metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which is approved useless as a guide to judging, it should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, I go through all that talking about what the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has written merely to try to get people to understand that the issue is freedom. The issue is religious freedom. If someone wants to stand up in a school and together wants to say the Pledge of Allegiance, can they say the Pledge of Allegiance at a public school? Sure. There was a challenge to that a number of years ago. It came out of West Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court wrote that no child can be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I agree with that. But, Mr. Speaker, they never gave a child who did not want to say it the right to censor and silence the classmates who did want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Speaker, that is the correct standard that needs to be followed when it comes to a prayer that people may want to offer in public school, a positive expression of hope and faith at the beginning of the day. Whether it be part of a devotional activity, whether it be done on a school basis or classroom basis, whatever they choose to implement, the issue is the freedom to do so. Are we to say that, because someone has overly sensitive ears and they choose to be offended by an expression of faith, that, therefore, we must censor and we must silence those expressions? Or if there may be a chance that one prayer out of a million might be offensive, do we say that we silence a million prayers just to be sure that one particular offensive prayer is never uttered? We do not apply that standard of free speech. We say that something with which we may disagree is nevertheless protected. Were we to say that you can censor people if you do not like what they are saying, Mr. Speaker, we would not have free speech in this country. How, then, can we say you can censor what someone is saying if it is a prayer in a public place and still claim to have freedom of religion? No, Mr. Speaker, freedom of religion means that we accept those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree. It means we look after the rights of the majority and the rights of the minority. We don't fall for this mistaken theory that the Bill of Rights is meant to protect only minorities and not protect the rest of us. It is meant to protect all of us with a standard of tolerance. In the cases where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against prayer in public schools, one of the dissenting Justices was Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart; and he noted that, if we really believe in diversity, then we ought to say people can offer their prayers. We know there will be different prayers, because we follow a basic principle, Mr. Speaker. You do not have a prayer composed by government. The religious freedom amendment says absolutely not. You do not have an imposition of government to require prayer to be said, nor its content. Who then selects a prayer or offers it? Well, we follow a very basic principle that is used in so many aspects of school, something we learned in kindergarten. It is called taking turns, and let different people have their turns, and let people be aware. Yes, there are diverse ways in which people pray. There are different opinions. But do we expect our children to be isolated from those during their daily activities at school, and then, when they become an adult, suddenly they are supposed to understand, suddenly they are supposed to be tolerant of different opinions when they have been told for years that those are dangerous or damaging or must be silenced? No, Mr. Speaker. As Justice Stewart wrote, in a society of compulsory attendance at public schools, to say that, during the school day, a child must be isolated from what is normal in everyday life is not neutrality. It is placing religion at an artificial and State-created disadvantage. Mr. Speaker, prayers are normal. They are common. We begin each day in this House of Representatives with a prayer. The United States Senate, the other body, begins its meetings with a prayer. Chambers of commerce, civic clubs, Lion's, Kiwanis, PTA organizations, State legislatures, city councils, all sorts of groups open with a prayer. Yet, if it happens in a public school, they say that is to be condemned. In the State of Alabama, there is an outrageous court order from a Federal judge that is covering the students there. Many students have been kicked out of school because the judge has issued a gag order against so much religious expression in the Alabama public schools, appointing monitors to make sure that something does not happen that he believes is wrong. I want to read to you from part of the opinion that was rendered by Federal Judge Ira DeMent in Alabama just this last year. As requested by foes of public prayer, U.S. District Judge Ira DeMent, permanently enjoined the schools from this, and I will read to you what he said could not happen under penalty of law. This was what was banned: ``Permitting prayers, Biblical and scripture 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, presenter, is a student, school official, or nonschool person.'' No matter what the occasion, if it involves a public school, whether it is from a student or anyone else, there better not be a prayer, whether it be in the classroom, a school assembly, a football game, a graduation, you name it. He appointed court monitors. In fact, he recently issued an order saying all the teachers and administrative personnel from the school system have to come to special training sessions to hear what the judge's standards are to make sure that people do not mouth religious utterances in a public school. Mr. Speaker, that is not free speech. That is not freedom of religion. That is oppression of religion masquerading, masquerading as constitutional law. Why do the courts do this? Remember what the First Amendment says. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That last phrase is basically ignored by the Supreme Court and, therefore, by the inferior courts, because the Supreme Court has said, well, anything, anything that smacks of religion becomes suspect. Therefore, even if you are not creating a church, you are not advocating an official set of beliefs, you are not telling people that we are going to have a hierarchy, or priesthood, or a church building, or a tithing, or doctrine, or theology or any of those things, nevertheless, if it is a simple prayer, that is going too far. That is too close to an official establishment of religion. Mr. Speaker, that is using the establishment clause of the Constitution as a weapon to suppress the free exercise of religion. One of the outrageous things, and there is plenty of them, one of the outrageous things in the Supreme Court decisions came in the graduation prayer case, the Lee v. Weisman decision, which came out of a public school graduation in Rhode Island; and in that case, Justice Kennedy wrote that a prayer must be assumed to be offensive. That is right. He said a prayer must be automatically assumed to be offensive. Those were his words, Mr. Speaker. Do we automatically assume that anything else is not only offensive, but must be suppressed? We do not apply that to about anything else other than, I guess, pornography, Mr. Speaker. We say that you have to be silent about this because we find it to be offensive. Now, if it is pornography, let us kick it out, and let us enforce the laws against it. But since when is a prayer or religious utterance considered to be automatically assumed to be offensive? The Internal Revenue Service, and, you know, obviously, they are following the same rationale as Justice Kennedy, the Internal Revenue Service, in one of its major California districts, sent out a memo to its employees about 2 years ago. The memo said, in your personal work space or on your desk, you cannot have any sort of religious emblem or item. It may be a little nativity scene. No. It may be a star of David, no. It may be a Bible, no. I wrote them, Mr. Speaker. I said, why are you doing this? The Internal Revenue Service wrote back to me, citing some different court cases. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I think they went beyond them, but citing a court case, they said, items which are considered to be intrusive , such as religious items or sexually suggestive cartoons or calendars, were to be banned. Mr. Speaker, that is the full list of what they said was offensive, to be banned; if it is religious, or if it is sexually suggestive, if it is pornographic. You see how the courts are equating the two, saying that something that is religious is offensive. Mr. Speaker, that flies in the face of everything on which this country was founded and on which most Americans place their hope and faith and trust. It flies in the face of what we believe. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. ISTOOK. I think the gentleman has made some excellent points. Yet I want to give a lot of credit to the American people. We are a generation beyond now the original decisions in 1962, and people have not given up. It is not just the public opinion polls, because they consistently, for 36 years, show that 75 percent or more of the American people support a constitutional amendment to make it possible to have prayer in public schools or a nativity scene on public property or whatever it might be, so long as we are not establishing an official church or a national religion or saying that somebody has precedence because their religion is better than somebody else's. We do not do that. And the American people haven't given up because, as the gentleman knows, there is a lot of civil disobedience that goes on. There are people that are still having prayer, in some cases in public schools or at football games or at school graduations, often because the ACLU has not gotten around to their town yet. But the moment that the ACLU does come in, or some of the other groups that work with them and bring these lawsuits around the country, groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State or People for the American Way, these are groups that are typically involved with the ACLU and these lawsuits to suppress religious expression because it makes some people uncomfortable. Well, as we know, it is common for someone to say something with which someone else may disagree, and we are supposed to be taught to be tolerant, but they are teaching them to be intolerant. But yet the American people keep trying. We have something called the Equal Access Act, and that means that before school starts or after school kids have been able to get together in Bible clubs, although they have problems with them there. They are not permitted the same rights as other school clubs. They cannot meet during the hours once school starts until school is out for the day. Other clubs can meet during the day in different set-aside time but not the Bible clubs. Or they can have a faculty adviser but not the Bible clubs. Or they can be recognized in the yearbook and other things as other groups are, but the Bible clubs are typically excluded. I looked through my high school annual recently. I graduated from high school in Texas in 1967. There is Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Youth for Christ, but in many places today those are considered suspect and they have to be handled with care. Yet clubs for any other purpose, as the gentleman mentioned, are routinely approved. So some people say, well, the fact that we have Bible clubs being formed at school or kids having prayer before or after school in their groups of their own initiative, that is not a symbol of the fact that there is nothing wrong, because there are things wrong. It is a symbol of the great desire of the American people and how they are always looking for a way. But why should we say that in classrooms where, as the gentleman mentioned, they may be talking about drugs, they may be talking about sex, they may be talking about all sorts of different alternate life- styles, but if somebody gives a religious perspective or says we ought to be able to start our days with prayer just like the U.S. Congress does, oh, no, we cannot do it, and people are threatened with arrest. I have to tell my colleague another horror story here. In Galveston, Texas, Santa Fe High School, a Federal judge was persuaded that, since the initiative came from students, he said, well, okay, you can have a prayer at graduation, but I will have a U.S. Marshal there, and if anybody mentions the name of Jesus Christ, they can be arrested and be held accountable to me. So it was not enough that they tried to squeeze out the ability to have some semblance of prayer. The judge wanted to control it. And how offensive that is to so many people. I know we have people of different faiths. We will pray different ways. But we learn. We learn from our differences.

Mr. ISTOOK. I think the gentleman makes some excellent points. The first amendment's first protection, the Bill of Rights, the very first thing is freedom of religion. That is the first thing the Founding Fathers put in the bill of rights. And yet now, this doctrine that the courts have adopted is, as the gentleman has illustrated, it is encouraging people not only to be thin-skinned but to seek to control the behavior of others under the guise of freedom. It is a topsy-turvy philosophy. We need to recognize that the intolerant person is not the one who wants to be able to say a prayer. The intolerant person is the one who insists on stopping it and bringing down the weight and power and might of the Federal Government through the Federal courts to stop people from simple religious expression such as a prayer. The cases go on. There was another case in Texas where a minister that had an antidrug program was banned from presenting it in public schools not because there was anything religious about his presentation. But simply because he was a minister. In Colorado, a teacher was fired, and the courts upheld the firing, for reading a Bible during the class reading time when the students were told, ``This is reading time. Read whatever you want to read.'' And while the students read when they wanted to read, he read his Bible, and he was fired because he was told, ``You cannot do that,'' and he insisted upon doing it. And the courts said that was okay? You take symbols. In San Francisco, California, in a city park for more than 60 years there has been a large cross. Even during FDR's days when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, in a national address he praised that as a great example and monument. And the Supreme Court a year ago said it has got to go. There have been similar cases in Hawaii and Eugene, Oregon, saying we should not have those on public property. And yet, if we will pull out a dollar bill, on the back of the dollar bill is the Great Seal of the United States and the stars on the Great Seal, the 13 stars, are arranged in the form of the star of David. And we have plenty other religious references.

Mr. ISTOOK. If we look right above the Speaker's chair, above the Speaker's chair and the flag are emblazoned the words ``In God we trust,'' which we also find on our currency. There are people that find that offensive. Does that mean we should take it off?

Mr. ISTOOK. And the religious freedom amendment is intended to protect these to say that the standard ought to be the same as it is for the Pledge of Allegiance. If they do not want to say it, that is fine, but that does not mean that they can stop other students that may want to have a prayer in public school. Take the Supreme Court's decisions on nativity scenes, the Allegheny v. Pittsburgh ACLU case from the Supreme Court, where they said they cannot have a nativity scene or a Jewish menorah, they were both covered on public property there, because there was not in the same line of sight secular emblems, Santa Claus, plastic reindeer, and so forth. In Jersey City, New Jersey, gosh, over 30 different religions have been permitted by Mayor Bret Schundler to put their religious emblems on City Hall property, but they got sued over the nativity scene. And the judge said, well, they have done it for the other religions, that is fine, and they put out a manger scene, and they have put here secular emblems, Santa Claus, the plastic reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, but it is still not good enough because the nativity scene is just too powerful, and it has got to go. So that was another Federal court ruling this last December. Outrageous. But it comes from the U.S. Supreme Court's case and the Allegheny case. Now, do my colleagues know what I am really waiting on? The Supreme Court says, well, they can't have religious emblems unless they balance them with a secular emblem, and even then they say the religious emblems are too powerful. But I have never seen them say they cannot have secular emblems unless they balance them with religious emblems. Are we going to say they cannot have a Frosty the Snowman unless they also have Mary and Joseph? Let us get real, my colleagues. Let us quit being so thin-skinned. Let us make the standard where the religious freedom amendment says, which is what Justice Rehnquist said, it is what the Founding Fathers intended. We do not want an official religion. We will not have an official religion in the United States of America. That is inconsistent with freedom of religion. But suppressing expressions of religious heritage or tradition or belief or a prayer on public property, that is also inconsistent with our beliefs in America. So let us correct these court decisions.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman is making the point that we cannot separate values and principles and moral standards from the religious beliefs which gave them birth and gave them life and give them meaning. If we look at the original founding document of this Nation, the Declaration of Independence, there is a very well-known clause in that. Many people only read it partway. But I am speaking of the clause that says, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.'' Now, if we look at what the Founding Fathers wrote, Mr. Speaker, we see that they say our rights did not come from the State, they did not come from the Federal Government, they did not come from the State government, they did not come from a local government, they did not come from a king, they do not come from an emperor, our rights come from God. ``We hold these truths to be self-evident. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.'' And what is the purpose of government according to the Declaration of Independence? To secure these rights, to secure the rights which come to us from God. That is what the Founding Fathers wrote they believed was the purpose of government, to protect our God-given rights. I must question, if we cannot acknowledge the author of our rights, if we cannot acknowledge the origin of our rights, if we cannot express belief in He who created our rights, for which government was created to protect those rights, if we cannot do those things, can we stay believers and true persons to those beliefs and to the principles on which this Nation was founded? If we abandon the source of this Nation, we abandon its principles. Mr. Speaker, the religious freedom amendment is intended to protect these rights which are in jeopardy. It has not gone without notice across the world that even though we enjoy great religious freedom in the United States of America, but let us not measure it by what we have left. Let us look at what has been taken away by these and other court decisions. They have been chipping and chipping and chipping away at our rights. Are we then to be satisfied because we still have something left, or must we recognize the process of this chipping away, of this diminishing, of this fencing in of our rights and our freedom and our precious religious heritage? Are we to accept this false notion that, as government expands, religion must shrink to maintain a separation between church and state, because we live in the era of expanding government, and if that is the philosophy, then expansion of government necessitates a shrinking of religion? Mr. Speaker, that is not the philosophy in which our Founding Fathers believed. That is why I quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist on that, and many other things to this effect can be found in their writings. We want to have a positive attitude toward religion, but make sure that we never embark upon anything that would create any official religion or any official church or any official faith for the United States of America. But the severity of this problem in the USA has been noted around the world. I want to read a statement from Pope John Paul II, which he issued this past December, just 5 months ago. He was greeting the new American Ambassador to the Vatican, and Pope John Paul II spoke these words to the new American Ambassador: ``It would truly be a sad thing if the religious and moral convictions upon which the experiment was founded could now somehow be considered a danger to free society such that those who would bring these convictions to bear upon your Nation's public life would be denied a voice in debating and resolving issues of public policy. The original separation of church and state in the United States was certainly not an effort to ban all religious conviction from the public sphere, a kind of banishment of God from civil society.'' Mr. Speaker, it is time that we take notice and that we take action. We will have the opportunity on the floor of this House within approximately a month to vote on the Religious Freedom Amendment. It has been approved by the Subcommittee on the Constitution, by the Committee on the Judiciary, it has over 150 Members of Congress who are cosponsors of it. I hope even more will add their names to it. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that those all across the country who are aware of this will contact their Member of Congress. I hope they will say to their Member of Congress, ``We need to protect our religious freedom, we need to reverse the attack upon prayer in school and our other religious freedoms, we need the Religious Freedom Amendment, and we expect our Members of Congress to support it.'' Members of Congress need to hear that message. Our children in public school need to be free to have a simple message of hope and faith in their school day, and let them be aware that yes, there are some differences in how some people pray and we have some differences among us that reflect some of our different faiths. But yet we are united, we are united by our common beliefs that almost all Americans share. That certainly was part of the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, that we owe our existence to God, and if we do not recognize God and if we do not do it freely and openly and consistently and yes, daily, Mr. Speaker, then how long can we expect the blessings of the Lord to continue with us and with our families and with our beloved Nation? We need that freedom which has been under attack by the courts. Let me share with you once again, Mr. Speaker, the words of the Religious Freedom Amendment which would become a part of the Constitution, not to replace the First Amendment but to supplement it, to be side-by-side with it. The Religious Freedom Amendment states 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. Those are the simple words, that is the simple language which will correct these things which we have been discussing, which will correct these wayward court decisions, which will give the Supreme Court a better compass than the one which they have been following. Mr. Speaker, it is long overdue. We should have had this vote decades ago. I am so grateful to be an American, to live in a land where the American people have not lost their faith, but they need to be free to express it. With faith comes value, with faith comes principles, with faith comes morals, with faith comes strength, and with faith comes the blessings, the blessings of liberty which we seek to secure for ourselves and for our posterity. Detailed and Legal Analysis Of the Religious Freedom Amendment, House Joint Resolution 78 (By U. S. Congressman Ernest J. Istook, Jr.) The Religious Freedom Amendment (House Joint Resolution 78) ``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.'' Background The Religious Freedom Amendment, House Joint Resolution 78, responds to the public's valid concern that our courts have become hostile to religion, placing barriers to religious expression which do not exist for other forms of free speech. A false and impossible standard of unanimity has been created, saying that if a single person objects to a prayer or other religious expression, then an entire group must be silenced and censored. This is the exact opposite of free speech. Free speech exists only when people have a right to say something with which others disagree. For over 36 years, court decisions have harmed religious freedom in America; the Religious Freedom Amendment (RFA) is intended as the solution, because the courts have left no other remedy than to amend the Constitution. Over 150 Members of the House of Representatives are co-sponsoring the RFA. It also is supported by a broad coalition that includes Christian groups, and Jewish groups, and Muslim groups. Support ranges from America's largest black denomination, the National Baptists, to the Salvation Army, Youth for Christ, and the country's largest Protestant group, the Southern Baptist Convention, and many more. Supreme Court rulings on school prayer and other religious issues have provoked public outrage since 1962. Throughout the last 36 years, public opinion polls consistently show about 75% or more of the American public want a constitutional amendment supporting prayer in public schools. Not since 1971 has such a constitutional amendment been voted upon in the House of Representatives.\1\ The Senate conducted votes in 1966,\2\ 1970,\3\ and 1984.\4\ Obviously, none of those succeeded. Additionally, related votes not involving a constitutional amendment have ranged from efforts to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts, to equal access proposals, to riders on appropriations bills. (These efforts are described in detail in a 1996 report by the Congressional Research Service.\5\) In 1997, on March 4th, the House approved legislation (HCR 31) to promote display of the Ten Commandments on public property, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary. It prevailed by 295-125, a 70% margin. It was, however, only a resolution of support, not changing any statutes or court decisions, much less changing the Constitutional language which the courts have misconstrued. Text of the RFA The RFA will end 27 years of inaction by the House on a constitutional amendment, by adding to our Constitution this language: ``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.'' \6\ H.J. Res. 78 also includes the normal protocol for submitting this text to the states for ratification, with a seven-year limit on that process. About ``separation of church and state'' The phrase ``separation of church and state'' is a term whose usage has been officially condemned by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, and with good reason. He labels it a ``mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions 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.'' Rehnquist then stated his conclusion: ``It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.'' \7\ The term ``separation of church and state'' has been frequently used not to promote official neutrality toward public religious expression, but to promote hostility. Essentially, it suggests that whenever government is present, religion must be removed. Unfortunately under this philosophy, because government today is found almost everywhere, the growth of government dictates a shrinking of religion. ``Separation'' becomes a euphemism for ``crowding out'' religion. A proper analysis should center on the actual text of the Constitution, but too often the language of the Constitution is ignored, and is replaced with a focus on the catch-phrase ``separation of church and state.'' It is cited almost as a mantra, often in an effort to foreclose further discussion, and without critical analysis of what the phrase actually might mean. That phrase is not found in the Constitution; yet it commonly is erroneously treated as the standard measuring stick for religious freedom issues. A wrongful focus on this term inevitably becomes antagonistic to religion, because its premise is that wherever government exists, religion must be pushed aside, to maintain the ``separation.'' Since American government today is far, far larger than in the days of our Founding Fathers, or than in any other era,\8\ its expansion automatically crowds out religious expression. When government enters, religion must exit. Our courts are blazing a wayward trail because they use a broken compass, a fact noted by dissenters on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Rehnquist has decried the phrase as a ``misleading metaphor'' which the Court has followed ``for nearly forty years.'' \9\ After reviewing at great length both the extra- Constitutional origin of the phrase, and the history of the development of the First Amendment itself, Chief Justice Rehnquist in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985) condemned the reliance on the phrase ``separation of church and state''. Among his comments: ``The evil to be aimed at, so far as those who spoke were concerned [in the Congress which approved the First Amendment], appears to have been the establishment of a national church, and perhaps the preference of one religious sect over another; but it was definitely not concern about whether the Government might aid all religions evenhandedly. * * * * * ``It would seem from this evidence that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment had acquired a well-accepted meaning: it forbade establishment of a national religion, and forbade preference among religious sects or denominations. Indeed, the first American dictionary defined the word ``establishment'' as ``the act of establishing, founding, ratifying or ordainin(g,'') such as in ``[t]he episcopal form of religion, so called, in England.'' 1 N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1st ed. 1828). The Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion nor did it prohibit the federal government from providing non-discriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the ``wall of separation'' that was constitutionalized in Everson. * * * * * ``Our recent opinions, many of them hopelessly divided pluralities, have with embarrassing candor conceded that the ``wall of separation'' is merely a ``blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier,'' which ``is not wholly accurate'' and can only be ``dimly perceived.'' [Citations omitted.] * * * * * ``But the greatest injury of the ``wall'' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . The ``wall of separation between church and State'' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. * * * * * ``The Framers intended the Establishment Clause to prohibit the designation of any church as a ``national'' one. The Clause was also designed to stop the Federal Government from asserting a preference for one religious denomination or sect over others. Given the ``incorporation'' of the Establishment Clause as against the States via the Fourteenth Amendment in Everson, States are prohibited as well from establishing a religion or discriminating between sects. As its history abundantly shows, however, nothing in the Establishment Clause requires government to be strictly neutral between religion and irreligion, nor does that Clause prohibit Congress or the States from pursuing legitimate secular ends through nondiscriminatory secular means.'' The Religious Freedom Amendment reflects Rehnquist's analysis as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and corrects the decisions he criticizes. Catch-phrases such as ``separation of church and state'' \10\ have had a chilling effect in modern America because government has expanded into almost every area of life. If the church must be segregated from government, then government's entry into any activity is a de facto expulsion of religion from that area. The severity of the problem was noted by Pope John Paul II, on greeting the new American ambassador to the Vatican in December, 1997, when he stated, ``It would truly be a sad thing if the religious and moral convictions upon which the American experiment was founded could now somehow be considered a danger to free society, such that those who would bring these convictions to bear upon your nation's public life would be denied a voice in debating and resolving issues of public policy. The original separation of Church and State in the United States was certainly not an effort to ban all religious conviction from the public sphere, a kind of banishment of God from civil society.'' how will the rfa change the outcome of previous supreme court decisions? As noted in numerous examples, some of which follow, the RFA reflects the opinions expressed by many Supreme Court justices prior to the Court's detours in recent years, and also reflects the dissenting opinions of many Justices during this period. (Often these were 5-4 decisions, meaning the dissenters were but a single vote short of being a majority.) The RFA effectively incorporates (or re-incorporates) their arguments into the Constitution. The following are some of the key decisions which are affected: engel v. vitale --The threshold case of Engel v. Vitale\11\ held that government may not compose any official prayer or compel joining in prayer. This portion of Engel would remain intact. However, that portion of Engel which precluded students from engaging in group classroom prayer even on a voluntary basis would be corrected by the RFA.\12\ abington school district v. schemp --Abington School District v. Schemp\13\, to the extent that it prohibited the composition or imposition of prayer by an entity of government, would remain the law under the RFA. But to the extent that Abington broadly permits the Establishment Clause to supersede the Free Exercise Clause, it would yield to the standard enunciated in Justice Stewart's dissent: ``It is, I think, a fallacious oversimplification to regard these two provisions as establishing a single constitutional standard of ``separation of church and state,'' which can be mechanically applied in every case to delineate the required boundaries between government and religion. We err in the first place if we do not recognize, as a matter of history and as a matter of the imperatives of our free society, that religion and government must necessarily interact in countless ways. Secondly, the fact is that while in many contexts the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause fully complement each other, there are areas in which a doctrinaire reading of the Establishment Clause leads to irreconcilable conflict with the Free Exercise Clause.'' wallace v. jaffree --The prohibition on silent prayer in public schools, incorporated into Wallace v. Jaffree\14\, would be corrected by the RFA. Silent prayer (as well as vocal prayer) would be legitimized, so long as there was no government dictate either to compel that it occur, or to compel any student to participate. As Chief Justice Burger stated in his dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree: ``It makes no sense to say that Alabama has ``endorsed prayer'' by merely enacting a new statute ``to specify expressly that voluntary prayer is one of the authorized activities during a moment of silence, . . . To suggest that a moment-of-silence statute that includes the word ``prayer'' unconstitutionally endorses religion, while one that simply provides for a moment of silence does not, manifests not neutrality but hostility toward religion. * * * * * ``The notion that the Alabama statute is a step toward creating an established church borders on, if it does not trespass into, the ridiculous. The statute does not remotely threaten religious liberty; it affirmatively furthers the values of religious freedom and tolerance that the Establishment Clause was designed to protect. Without pressuring those who do not wish to pray, the statute simply creates an opportunity to think to plan, or to pray if one wishes . . .'' In Justice Potter Stewart's dissent from Abington, he found permitting school prayer is a necessary element of diversity: ``. . . the duty laid upon government in connection with religious exercises in the public schools is that of refraining from so structuring the school environment as to put any kind of pressure on a child to participate in those exercises; it is not that of providing an atmosphere in which children are kept scrupulously insulated from any awareness that some of their fellows may want to open the school day with prayer, or of the fact that there exist in our pluralistic society differences of religious belief.'' lee v. weisman --Graduation prayers (so long as not prescribed by government) would be freed of the prohibition in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992). Justice Kennedy wrote in that case that the normal expectation of respectful silence (which is expected for so many other school programs), became coercion when a rabbi offered a graduation prayer, because it creates ``pressure, though subtle and indirect, . . . as real as any overt compulsion.'' The RFA takes issue with Justice Kennedy's view, and instead embodies the views of the four Justices who dissented to this 5-4 decision. Whether at a graduation or other school setting, the RFA incorporates the conclusions of these four Justices (Scalia, Rehnquist, White and Thomas) that ``hearing'' is not ``participating'' and ``hearing'' is not ``joining'' in prayer, and thus there was no coercion to pray. The Court never explained how expecting respect for a rabbi's prayer at graduation is worse or more ``coercive'' than expecting courtesy and quiet for non-religious school presentations, or for the Pledge of Allegiance which was also a part of the graduation ceremony. The majority, though, turned its back on neutrality by holding that expecting courtesy and tolerance is coercive, even though seeking respect for non-religious speech was normal and permitted. But because Lee V. Weisman transmuted simple listening into ``participation'', the Religious Freedom Amendment instead requires something greater than this before an activity is deemed to be an infringement of rights. The RFA applies a simple common-sense standard that makes prayer an expressly- permitted activity, so long as actual joining-in and/or prescribing of prayer are not required. Listening is not joining and is not participating and is not coercion. In dissenting to Lee V Weisman's 5-4 ruling, Justice Scalia called the new ``psychological coercion'' standard ``boundless, and boundlessly manipulable''.\15\ He noted that prayer at school graduations had been standard since the first known graduation from a public high school, in Connecticut in July 1868.\16\ Just as the RFA now does, Justice Scalia and the other three dissenting justices distinguished between being present and actually joining in a prayer. As these four justices wrote (at 636): ``. . . According to the [majority opinion of the] Court, students at graduation who want ``to avoid the fact or appearance of participation,'' . . . in the invocation and benediction are psychologically obligated by ``public pressure, as well as peer pressure, . . . to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence'' during those prayers. This assertion-the very linchpin of the Court's opinion--is almost as intriguing for what it does not say as for what it says. It does not say, for example, that students are psychologically coerced to bow their heads, place their hands in a Durer-like prayer position, pay attention to the prayers, utter ``Amen,'' or in fact pray. . . . It claims only that students are psychologically coerced ``to stand . . . or, at least, maintain respectful silence.'' . . . The Court's notion that a student who simply sits in ``respectful silence'' during the invocation and benediction (when all others are standing) has somehow joined--or would somehow be perceived as having joined--in the prayers is nothing short of ludicrous.'' The standard of Lee v. Weisman's bare 5-4 majority has been dangerous, because it declares that simple exposure to religious speech (like exposure to pornography) is so inherently damaging that people must be protected from it. In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote (at 505 U.S. 594), ``Assuming, as we must, that the prayers were offensive . . .''. Even pornography is granted a chance to be measured against prevailing community standards; but prayer is assumed automatically to be offensive. Lee v. Weisman's subjective standard permits a lone ``offended'' individual to silence all others in a public place, thereby censoring their religious expressions. The effect of this ruling was to create the dangerous notion of a new ``freedom from hearing'' right which is superior to others' express free speech rights under the First Amendment. This is especially insidious and chilling when it is used for prior restraint of religious speech. It also perpetuates the notion that an offense to a few must be corrected, even if doing so gives offense to the vast majority. As Justice Kennedy noted (505 U.S. 595), ``for many persons an occasion of this significance lacks meaning if there is no recognition, however brief, that human achievements cannot be understood apart from their spiritual essence.'' But he found that interest immaterial, so long as any one person was offended. The four dissenters took a view much more in keeping with respecting the rights of all, and not just of a few. They noted that, in trying to avoid offense to one student and one parent, the Court's anti- graduation prayer ruling ignored the fact that it was giving offense to all the other students and parents. They stated (at 505 U.S. 645): ``The reader has been told much in this case about the personal interest of Mr. Weisman and his daughter, and very little about the personal interest on the other side. They are not inconsequential. Church and state would not be such a difficult subject if religion were, as the Court apparently thinks it to be, some purely personal avocation that can be indulged entirely in secret, like pornography, in the privacy of one's room. For most believers it is not that, and has never been. Religious men and women of almost all denominations have felt it necessary to acknowledge and beseech the blessing of God as a people, and not just as individuals, because they believe in the ``protection of divine Providence,'' as the Declaration of Independence put it, not just for individuals but for societies; because they believe God to be, as Washington's first Thanksgiving Proclamation put it, the ``Great Lord and Ruler of Nations.'' One can believe in the effectiveness of such public worship, or one can deprecate and deride it. But the longstanding American tradition of prayer at official ceremonies displays with unmistakable clarity that the Establishment Clause does not forbid the government to accommodate it.'' Lee v. Weisman, in discussing the tradition of graduation prayer, also included an interesting note that the practice was part of the first known American graduation ceremony. As it noted (at 505 U.S. 635): ``By one account, the first public high school graduation ceremony took place in Connecticut in July 1868--the very month, as it happens, that the Fourteenth Amendment (the vehicle by which the Establishment Clause has been applied against the States) was ratified--when 15 seniors from the Norwich Free Academy marched in their best Sunday suits and dresses into a church hall and waited through majestic music and long prayers.'' Under the pretense of promoting tolerance, our courts have thus been used to promote censorship. The RFA corrects this, protecting the rights of both minorities and majorities. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were intended to protect each and every one of us, not merely some of us. Stone v. Graham --The ability to post the Ten Commandments on public property (as an expression of religious beliefs, heritage or traditions of the people), prohibited by Stone v. Graham,\17\ becomes protected under the RFA, although there would be neither a mandate nor a guarantee that it would be proper under all circumstances. But Stone v. Graham's automatic prohibition on such a display would be ended. Stone's majority decision expressed concern that posting the Ten Commandments would ``induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments.'' \18\ But, in dissent, Chief Justice Rehnquist noted:\19\ ``The Establishment Clause does not require that the public sector be insulated from all things which may have a religious significance or origin. . . . Kentucky has decided to make students aware of this fact by demonstrating the secular impact of the Ten Commandments.'' Chief Justice Rehnquist then quotes from a 1948 opinion \20\ by former Justice Jackson: ``. . . Perhaps subjects such as mathematics, physics or chemistry are, or can be, completely secularized. But it would not seem practical to teach either practice or appreciation of the arts if we are to forbid exposure of youth to any religious influences. Music without sacred music, architecture minus the cathedral, or painting without the scriptural themes would be eccentric and incomplete, even from a secular point of view. . . . I should suppose it is a proper, if not an indispensable, part of preparation for a worldly life to know the roles that religion and religions have played in the tragic story of mankind. The fact is that, for good or for ill, nearly everything in our culture worth transmitting, everything which gives meaning to life, is saturated with religious influences, derived from paganism, Judaism, Christianity--both Catholic and Protestant--and other faiths accepted by a large part of the world's peoples.'' Lemon v. Kurtzman --Lemon v. Kurtzman \21\ and its subjective three-pronged test have often been used to achieve a desired result rather than to guide an analysis. The Lemon test would necessarily be revised, because a ``purely secular'' objective would no longer be compulsory. Recognition of religious heritage, tradition or belief would be a proper objective, so long as it did not rise to the level of promoting a particular faith. Allegheny v. ACLU --The case of County of Allegheny v. ACLU, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter,\22\ would be brought back into line with Lynch v. Donnelly.\23\ (Both were 5-4 decisions.) The so- called ``plastic reindeer'' test for holiday symbols on public property would no longer be decisive. Lynch permitted display of a government-owned Nativity scene, whereas Allegheny restricted the display of a private creche on public property, citing a need for better visual ``balance'' with secular emblems. It would be no more compulsory to add secular items to a religious display than to require adding religious symbols to ``balance'' purely secular displays. A truer test would consider whether symbols of differing faiths were afforded similar opportunity for display during their special seasons. The proper test would be whether government sought to establish an official religion, rather than outlawing traditions from a public forum. The Religious Freedom Amendment would correct the Supreme Court's bias that secular symbols, regardless of how perverse, are constitutionally-protected for public display,\24\ whereas religious symbols are considered suspect. The intent of the RFA is to re-establish true neutrality, by affording religious expression the same equal protection as other expression, rather than the pretense of neutrality that too often exists in name only.\25\ The carryover of true neutrality would extend to other aspects of once-common but now-suppressed reflections of beliefs, heritage and traditions. School holiday programs would not feel the pressure to limit songs to ``Frosty the Snowman'' or ``Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer''. The carols of Christmas, the hymns of Thanksgiving, the songs of Hanukkah, and those of other holidays and other faiths would be welcome. Tolerance and understanding would be promoted, rather than avoided. The standard would be that reflections of faith, meaning minority faiths as well as majority faiths, are clearly permitted, so long as it does not progress into advocating or promoting any particular faith. Section-by-section review of the RFA Preamble: ``To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: . . .'' The preamble has a purpose. As former Chief Justice Story described the nature of a constitutional preamble, ``Its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to create them.'' \26\ The preamble to H.J. Res. 78 serves principally to indicate intent, to assist in interpreting the substantive provisions. The concept of this particular preamble is attributed chiefly to Forest Montgomery, legal counsel for the National Association of Evangelicals. There is nothing unique or unusual, however, to have constitutional language which expressly mentions God. Such language is the rule, and not the exception, in our state constitutions. Critics of this mention of God should review the constitutions of our 50 states. Through these, the American people have freely embraced attitudes very different from those expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court. All fifty of our states \27\ have adopted express and explicit mentions of God in their constitutions or preambles. The attached Appendix details the express language, from each of the states. In Alaska, the constitution states that its citizens are ``grateful to God and to those who founded our nation . . . , in order to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of political, civil and religious liberty''. In Colorado, theirs reads, ``with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.'' Idaho states, ``grateful to Almighty God for our freedom,'' which is the identical phrase used by California, and Nebraska, and New York, and Ohio, and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania phrases it as ``grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance.'' Some go even farther. Maryland's Article 36 declares ``the duty of every man to worship God.'' Maryland's constitution further states that nothing in it shall prohibit references to God or prayer ``in any governmental or public document, proceeding, activity, ceremony, school, institution, or place'' and declares that those things are not considered to be an establishment of religion. Virginia's refers to the ``duty which we owe to our Creator'' and to the ``mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity.'' These references to God are typical of our state constitutions. Just as America adopted ``In God We Trust'' as our national motto, the states have mottoes, often incorporated on their state seals. Arizona's seal states, ``Ditat Deus'', meaning ``God Enriches.'' Florida's seal states, ``In God We Trust.'' Ohio doesn't put it on a seal, but proclaims its motto, ``With God, All Things Are Possible.'' \28\ The Religious Freedom Amendment echoes the philosophy found in our state constitutions, namely that faith guided the creation of America's common principles and ideals, and faith is at the core of preserving them. It tracks the essence of the Declaration of Independence, wherein our Founding Fathers proclaimed that our rights come not from government, but from God, declaring, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.'' The Religious Freedom Amendment also applies a phrase common to many of the original state constitutions: ``according to the dictates of conscience''. Virginia used it in 1776 as part of its Declaration of Rights, proclaiming, ``all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religions, according to the dictates of conscience.'' It appeared with slight variations in the original constitutions of Delaware, New Jersey and North Carolina (all 1776), Vermont (1777), Massachusetts (1780) and New Hampshire (1784). Today, this phrase of ``according to the dictates of conscience'' is echoed in the constitutions of 28 states-- Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. It must always be stressed that the Religious Freedom Amendment is not intended to override the First Amendment's prohibitions on establishing any religion as a state religion and on creating official status for any set of beliefs. The RFA would not do this. The preamble's inclusion of the phrase, ``according to the dictates of conscience,'' is the first of multiple protections within the Religious Freedom Amendment to safeguard the rights of religious minorities. The term ``according to the dictates of conscience'' does not, however, protect lewd behavior under the claim or pretense of religion. Although worded in absolutist fashion, the First Amendment nevertheless yields when necessary to avoid ``substantial threat to public safety, peace, or order''.\29\ The courts have determined that free exercise of religion is not a license to disregard general statutes on behavior, such as those against advocating violent overthrow of the government,\30\ outlawing polygamy \31\, use of illegal drugs \32\, prostitution \33\, and even snake- handling \34\. The right to free speech does not permit shouting ``Fire!'' in a public theater \35\, or wanton and intentional libel and slander \36\. Free speech does not give students a right to interrupt and usurp class time to speak whenever they want about whatever they want. Neither does the RFA. The RFA would not permit or sanction disruptive behavior by those wishing to pray or to speak about religion. It does not open public schools to anyone who might wish to enter to bring in their own religious message. Trespass remains trespass. The RFA simply permits religious openness by those students who have a right (and usually a legal obligation) to attend school. ``The people's right'' is a right held both by individuals and as a collective group. The RFA does not, however, create a mechanism for government officials to begin dictating wholesale inclusion of religious symbols for constant or incessant display on public property, because they would remain bound by the First Amendment's prohibition against establishing an official religion via government! The RFA simply shifts the boundary, away from exclusionism and into greater accommodation, but stops well short of actual endorsement of religion. It provides a check upon the court challenges which have erroneously equated and confused accommodation and recognition with endorsement. The RFA would correct the trend of using the Establishment Clause to run roughshod over the Free Exercise Clause. The First Amendment consciously established a tension by stating not only what government could not do, but also stating what the people could do. Our courts have instead used it to halt voluntary religious expressions by citizens, individually and collectively, whenever government has some connection. Because the scope and intrusiveness of government into all aspects of American society has grown so rapidly, it has become all-pervasive, making it a rare occasion when there is no presence of government. Accordingly, the judicially- created ``wall of separation'' has become a moving wall. As the presence of government constantly expands, this standard crowds out opportunities for religion to be present and to flourish. As shown by the recent ruling in City of Boerne v. Flores, Archbishop \37\ even a church's ability to have room to seat its worshippers is subjected to government control. This was never the intention of our Founding Fathers. The RFA's preamble stresses our shared belief that government should accommodate and protect religious freedom, but it simultaneously stresses that government should not and must not dictate in regard to religion. By concluding with the safeguard of ``according to the dictates of conscience,'' the preamble assures that as it protects religious expression in public places, it nevertheless cannot be used to dictate expression or non-expression of beliefs, nor can it be used to favor one religious faith over another. Protecting religious expression: ``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. . . .'' Never an Official Church This phrase draws a clear boundary beyond which government cannot go. No public property occasion which recognizes religious beliefs, heritage or tradition, and no such exercise of the right to pray shall rise to the level of denoting any religion as official. This follows the intent of the drafters of the First Amendment, as understood by now- Chief Justice William Rehnquist and related in his opinion in Wallace v. Jaffree: ``The evil to be aimed at, so far as [its drafters] were concerned, appears to have been the establishment of a national church, and perhaps the preference of one religious sect over another, but it was definitely not concern about whether the Government might aid all religions evenhandedly.'' \38\ Government should accommodate America's faiths, and the emphasis they have always received in this nation's life, but should not be promoting any one faith in particular. For example, the RFA would not permit government to proclaim officially that the United States is a ``Christian nation'', nor a ``Jewish nation,'' ``Muslim nation,'' nor that of any other particular faith. But the supposed accommodation under current rulings is typically a pretense, the functional equivalent of no accommodation at all. The proper standard of accommodation was described by then- Chief Justice Warren Burger, in his dissent to Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, at 90: ``The statute [permitting a moment of silence, and thus silent prayer, in Alabama's public schools] ``endorses'' only the view that the religious observances of others should be tolerated and, where possible, accommodated. If the government may not accommodate religious needs when it does so in a wholly neutral and noncoercive manner, the ``benevolent neutrality'' that we have long considered the correct constitutional standard will quickly translate into the ``callous indifference'' that the Court has consistently held the Establishment Clause does not require. ``The Court today has ignored the wise admonition of Justice Goldberg that ``the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow.'' The language to permit religious expression on public property is the first corrective segment of the RFA; the second is the portion dealing with non-discrimination. The text of the RFA uses the two-part structure employed by the First Amendment, intended to balance freedom from state- imposed religion (via the so-called Establishment Clause, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .'') with freedom of religion (via the so-called Free Exercise Clause, ``or prohibiting the free exercise thereof''). The RFA likewise echoes the prohibition on an official religion, then follows it with language clearly indicating that the intent is not to restrict religion, but to maximize it. The RFA's terms are necessarily more explicit than the First Amendment, as a necessity to correct court rulings of recent years. The RFA reflects former Chief Justice Warren Burger's comments about how government should accommodate expressions of religious tradition, heritage and belief. As he wrote in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, at 675 (1984) (and before Lynch was undercut by a later 5-4 ruling): ``[t]here is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789'' and that there are ``countless . . . illustrations of the Government's acknowledgment of our religious heritage and governmental sponsorship of graphic manifestations of that heritage.'' These included, in part: ``--invocations of Divine guidance in deliberations and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders; ``--George Washington's designation of a religiously-toned Thanksgiving, which 80 years later was made a national holiday; ``--the designation of Christmas as a national holiday and the grant of paid leave to public employees on that day; ``--Presidential proclamations commemorating other religious events, such as the Jewish High Holy Days; ``--Usage of ``In God We Trust'' as a national motto, and on coins and currency; ``--Display of religious paintings in publicly-supported art galleries [to which he could have added the religious overtones of many of the depictions in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol itself].'' Who Are ``The People''? The word ``people'' was purposefully chosen rather than specifying simply ``a person's right'' or ``every person's right'' to pray, and to recognize religious tradition, heritage or belief. In speaking of ``the people's right'', the RFA embodies ``people'' in both the individual and the collective meaning of the word. This is consistent with the dual usage already employed by Constitutional references to ``the people.'' In its Preamble, the Constitution opens with ``We the People'', thus referring to the collective conduct of the American people acting to create their government. The First Amendment uses an obviously collective sense of ``people'' when it proclaims ``the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.'' The Fourth Amendment employs it to indicate individual rights in protecting ``The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.'' The Ninth and Tenth Amendments make obvious reference to the collective rights of the people, using their instrumentality of government, in specifying that ``The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'' and that ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.'' Protecting Key Decisions The RFA is also intended to preserve and protect the precedential value of Supreme Court decisions favorable to religious freedom and to even-handed treatment of religion, namely Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983) and Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 115 S. Ct. 2510 (1995). Without the RFA, the future of these precedents is problematical, because they are isolated exceptions to the trends of the Supreme Court in other religious freedom cases. Their viability and precedential value is subject to sudden change by the Court, absent the RFA. The RFA also cements the precedent of another series of Supreme Court decisions, relating to government providing of benefits to students who are in parochial schools. That ruling, in the 5-to-4 decision in Agostini v. Felton, is discussed as part of the ``benefits'' clause of the RFA, later in this document. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), by 6-to-3 upheld the constitutionality of prayers by a government-paid chaplain, at the opening of legislative sessions.\39\ Rosenberger by a 5-to-4 Court margin directed that when a public university funded other student publications, it could not refuse to assist one with a Christian association. These decisions in Marsh v. Chambers and Rosenberger v. Rector are protected by the Religious Freedom Amendment, guarding them from the vagaries of back-and-forth shifting margins on the Supreme Court. Protecting Rights of the People H.J. Res. 78 does not seek to protect religious rights simply by restricting the power of government; it also proclaims an affirmative right of the people themselves. The Bill of Rights and other Constitutional amendments have likewise used both approaches to establish and protect rights of the people.\40\ The Religious Freedom Amendment expressly declares the rights of the people, to make its intent clearer to the courts. (But, as previously noted, the absolutist statement of an affirmative right does not impede reasonable requirements for the time, place and manner of speech. For example, the RFA does not give a student any right to disrupt class by spontaneously offering a prayer, just as the First Amendment does not give them any right to disrupt class by spontaneously launching into any other form of speech.) ``Public property'' as used in the RFA is synonymous with ``government property'', but is not limited to real estate. In a proper case, it can for example address public property such as a city seal which contains a depiction of a community's heritage, traditions or beliefs. Thus, the limiting test is to assure that any role of government does not go beyond recognizing religious belief, heritage or tradition, and avoids becoming the promoting of any religion. The RFA does not repeal the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, but interacts with it, restoring the former balance between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Use of public property to go beyond the Equal Access Act, to go beyond recognition and into promotion of a religion would continue to run afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Protecting individual conscience and minorities: ``. . . Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, [or] prescribe school prayers . . .'' The RFA does contain any language to overturn the First Amendment's prohibition on establishing an official religion, neither expressly nor impliedly. Nevertheless, it contains protective language as an extra safeguard to assure this. The RFA echoes the pattern of the First Amendment, with both a prohibition on establishing an official church, coupled with guarantees intended to assure maximum religious liberty. No school prayer (nor any religious activity) could ever be mandatory; the RFA explicitly makes this clear. It demonstrates an abundance of caution and concern for religious freedom for all, in particular for any who may be in a minority in their area. It does not permit a large group to muzzle or suppress a small group; it does not permit a small group to muzzle or censor a large group. Nor does it permit anyone to compel prayer or other religious conduct by those who do not wish to participate. Neither the federal nor state government could prescribe prayer. This covers both principal definitions of ``prescribe''. It could not ``prescribe'' prayers, in the sense that it could not direct that they occur; under the RFA, that initiative properly comes from students. Nor could government ``prescribe'' prayer, in the sense that it could not dictate the content of prayer. This language reinforces the ``according to the dictates of conscience'' protection of the RFA's preamble. The RFA effectively endorses and follows the standard applied by the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.\41\ There, the Court correctly ruled that no child could or should be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance. However, the Court did not create a right for an objecting student to prohibit their classmates from saying the Pledge. Providing equal protection: ``. . . [Neither the United States nor any State shall] . . . discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.'' Ending Discrimination Against Religion Religious symbols and religious behavior are treated by current court decisions as being automatically suspect when they occur on public property, or in association with a government activity or program.\42\ But unlike the standard on religion, secular symbols, behavior, or activity are not pre-burdened. This discriminatory dual standard is prohibited by the RFA. The amendment does not prohibit positive accommodation of religion, such as non-profit tax treatment, but focuses instead to bar discrimination against religion. The Congressional Research Service reported recently on 30 instances of federal statutes and regulations which assure that government does not subsidize religious practices of receiving organizations. But CRS also found an additional 51 federal statutes and regulations which disqualify religious organizations or adherents from neutral participation in generalized government programs.\43\ This discrimination needs correction. There is a growing recognition that faith-based programs can succeed, winning results even when other programs cannot, to combat crime and violence, teen pregnancy, welfare dependency, recidivism, and other social problems. To disqualify them because of their religious component not only violates the notion of neutrality, but denies assistance to a great many Americans. Neutrality Regarding Benefits-Protecting Fragile Precedents The ``benefits'' provision of the RFA reflects and protects (among other policy decisions) two recent Supreme Court decisions. Both were decided by 5-4 margins, in an area where the Court still shifts back-and-forth, unless the RFA provides an anchor to preserve these fragile rulings. The first of these protected holdings is Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (1995), holding it impermissible viewpoint discrimination to exclude student religious publications from the University's general subsidy of student publications. The Court concluded that free speech itself was threatened if religious speech were singled out for different treatment: ``The governmental program at issue is neutral toward religion. Such neutrality is a significant factor in upholding programs in the face of Establishment Clause attack, and the guarantee of neutrality is not offended where, as here, the government follows neutral criteria and even-handed policies to extend benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse.'' The RFA also reflects the philosophy embodied--by a bare margin--in Agostini v. Felton, No. 96-552 (June 23, 1997). Agostini by 5-4 reversed a prior ruling on the same issue (a ruling in Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402 (1985)), which likewise was decided by 5-4). The Court justified the reversal because the Court had also reversed two prior opinions on crucial points. Those cases likewise turned on margins of 5-4 in one instance \44\ and also 5-4 in the other! \45\ What the Court gives, the Court can take away tomorrow, especially on 5-4 decisions! The RFA protects these important decisions from such judicial schizophrenia. In Agostini v. Felton, the Supreme Court ruled that New York City may use federal Title I funds to provide special teachers on the premises of parochial schools, to give supplemental and remedial instruction to disadvantaged children.\46\ The Court opined that there were sufficient safeguards to assure that sectarian schools would not have a profit motive to provide religious instruction. It added: ``First, the Court has abandoned Ball's presumption that public employees placed on parochial school grounds will inevitably inculcate religion or that their presence constitutes a symbolic union between government and religion. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U.S. 1, 12- 13. No evidence has ever shown that any New York City instructor teaching on parochial school premises attempted to inculcate religion in students. Second, the Court has departed from Ball's rule that all government aid that directly aids the educational function of religious schools is invalid. Other Establishment Clause cases before and since have examined the criteria by which an aid program identifies its beneficiaries to determine whether the criteria themselves have the effect of advancing religion by creating a financial incentive to undertake religious indoctrination. Cf. e.g., Witters, supra, at 488; Zobrest, supra, at 10. Such an incentive is not present where, as here, the aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis.'' Neutrality Regarding Benefits-Protecting Current Policies In addition to the Supreme Court precedents of Rosenberger and of Agostini, the ``benefits'' provision of the RFA protects other current policy. For example, the RFA's ``benefits'' provision protects these existing programs: Over a billion dollars each year in federal grants goes to Catholic Charities USA for various social services, ranging from shelters for the homeless, to aid to refugees and to unwed mothers. Over a billion dollars each year is spent on GI Bill education benefits, over $7-billion to federal Pell Grants to students, $23-billion a year in federally- guaranteed student loans, and $17-billion a year in direct lending to students, all of which may be used at private and church schools, as well as at public schools. The RFA does not permit any appropriation or other funding for religious activities. Government funding for a religious purpose would still be banned by the prohibition on official religion found both in the First Amendment and in the RFA. However, once a government program was established, to accomplish a governmental purpose, participants could not be disqualified on the basis of religion or religious affiliation. Other illustrations of the current problem (and the not- clearly-settled law in light of 5-4 Supreme Court rulings): --Although the case was ultimately settled, the Federal Communications Commission denied a federal grant to Fordham University, because its campus station included a religious program on Sunday mornings. The federal district court \47\ sided with the FCC that Fordham was disqualified by supposed church-state considerations. The RFA will prevent such injustices in the future. --Provisions of state constitutions have been used to deny using general benefit programs when there was any connection with a religious institution. Again, the RFA will rectify this, because it applies at both the federal and the state levels.\48\ --After the Oklahoma City bombing, it was reported that HUD attorneys almost denied nearby churches the ability to receive bombing repair money, on the same basis as other damaged property, because of ``separation of church and state'' concerns. Again, the RFA protects the ability to participate on an equal and non-discriminatory basis. The ``benefits'' language does not guarantee any benefit to any person or group. Instead, it assures ``equal access'' if and when some benefit is made available for a permitted governmental purpose. For example, the RFA does not create a program of vouchers for education. If and when a unit of government chose to create them, however, the RFA would simply assure that all individuals and private entities are afforded equal access to them. This is the identical standard already utilized in federal student loan programs and the G-I Bill. Private institutions, including those affiliated with churches, should be permitted to participate under the same standards as public institutions. For example, neither the University of Notre Dame nor Boston College are disqualified from federal education programs for being Catholic, nor is any other school disqualified on the basis of religion. This is a proper standard which has proven workable, which should be applied uniformly, and which should be protected from the uncertainty of the Supreme Court rulings in this area. Conclusion Rather than promoting understanding, recent decades of current Supreme Court decisions have promoted the opposite. A correct standard of tolerance would accept the benefits of listening respectfully to other views, rather than using the courts to silence them. As four current Supreme Court justices have expressed: \49\ ``. . . 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 on this occasion 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 me the minimal inconvenience of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation, is as senseless in policy as it is unsupportable in law.'' The wayward state of Supreme Court decisions has been decried by Chief Justice Rehnquist: ``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 his country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.'' \50\ The American people have never accepted the Supreme Court's extra burdens levied against school prayer and against religious freedoms during the past 36 years. It has been 27 years since this House has acted upon the necessary constitutional amendment to correct this, and the time to remedy that is now. The Religious Freedom Amendment should be adopted.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I regret I could not be present to vote on the Motion to Instruct Conferees on IMF funding. I am attending a special family milestone--my oldest son's graduation from college. Had I been present I would have voted Nay.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, taxes are too high. Federal taxes take over a fifth of America's entire economic output--more than ever before in history, and many Americans pay half of their income in combined Federal, State, and local taxes. And some people will do anything to throw up roadblocks and detours in our trip to fiscal responsibility. They don't want to make the journey toward a balanced budget in the first place. They like joyriding instead, and sending the bill to taxpayers. They want to spend, spend, spend, without regard for how much it costs or how much debt we build. When confronted with the debt, they always do the same thing: Raise taxes, and pat themselves on the back for ``making the tough decisions!'' Mr. Speaker, the joyride is over. This time we move toward a balanced budget, and we can't bill taxpayers for the trip. Big government got us where we are. So big government can foot the travel costs to get us back to fiscal sanity. Cutting spending is the way to reach a balanced budget. But the joyriders won't stop looking for a free ride from taxpayers, and that's why we need the Barton tax limitation amendment. No more detours. No more tax increases. Let's pay our own way to a balanced budget. Support the Barton amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I regret could not be present to vote for the Tax Limitation Amendment. I am attending a special family milestone--my oldest son's graduation from college. Had I been present I would have voted AYE.