Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, could the gentleman give his address for people who do not have computers.

Mr. KINGSTON. If they have a particular question, they should first search the web page and then if they cannot find their question and answer they need to contact the office of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook).

Mr. KINGSTON. Because I think if people want to have some of these questions answered, and I know the gauntlet the gentleman has gone through in the last four years, having answered just about every question that has ever been raised on this, but not everybody has heard the questions or the answers. How do they find this out? How do they find out some non-Christian groups that are endorsing it?

Mr. KINGSTON. Does this religious freedom amendment have a web page, a freestanding web page?

Mr. KINGSTON. Is the Jewish rabbi group, is this a large group or an outsider group?

Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman has worked hard with such groups. Can the gentleman tell me the non-Christian groups who are supporting this?

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, let me ask the gentleman this question. This is endorsed by a number of Christian groups.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes, so those judgments have to be made, and the Chatham County Exchange Club does that. I do not know how they do that, but they do it. But who decides if the Ten Commandments gets put on the wall or the Articles of Goat Worship?

Mr. KINGSTON. Probably plenty of room for judges and congressmen and many others. Who will decide if the school puts up the Ten Commandments or the Articles of Goat Worship? The reason I ask that, yesterday I was at the dedication of the Coastal Middle School in Savannah, Georgia. I was at the dedication of the Freedom Shrine, which the Chatham County Exchange Club has given to many, many schools, and it is a great thing and it has the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, George Washington Inaugural Address and all sorts of good documents of American history. And as I was looking at the Freedom Shrine I was wondering how do they decide which documents go? Do you put the Gettysburg Address in there or Lincoln's second inaugural speech?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a special place in hell for a number of Federal court judges, as I am sure there will be for Members of Congress.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, a goat worshiper, a devil worshiper or a bizarre type of religion. Now, they want to have equal time. Do we want our child in the room when that prayer is taking place? That would probably, it might in a Christian parent cause a little concern, the same way it would cause the goat worshiper's parent to have concern when the Christian prayer is going on. Now, I only say that to the degree that, as our society gets more and more diverse, it is reasonable to expect in a country of 260 million people some folks who are in a very minority, extreme minority-type religion who pray perhaps in a bizarre way; and by that I mean, maybe they do not bow their heads when they pray, maybe they scream or something. And I am only phrasing this question in a hypothetical right now, but it is still very possible for some fringe religions to get under the Religious Freedom Amendment equal time in the classroom, so to speak, and it is fair, the way the gentleman has bent over backwards to draw this thing so fair that it will happen. How does the gentleman answer those concerns?

Mr. KINGSTON. So, Mr. Speaker, they do not have that spiritual maturity that would allow them to tolerate it and say, well, let us go ahead and have that person's prayer today. How would this deal with that?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if we have a minority religion in a group, say the predominant members of a class predominantly are Christian, Jewish and Muslim, and we have another child out there who is 7 years old, and we are going around the circle with the Big 3, but he has some obscure religion. I do not know what would be an example; say he is a Zen. How do we keep that 7- or 8-year-old from being proselytized by the other religions because he is going to be a little bit embarrassed to stand up for his religion because of peer pressure? At that age, nobody has the fervency of their convictions, but children know what the majority is doing and in order to fit in, often they want to do what it takes to fit in with the majority.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the gentleman this question, which is less than friendly.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, what would keep a teacher from salting the group for one particular religion over the other or encouraging the favoritism of one religion over the other?

Mr. KINGSTON. Four years to get this done, and I do not think anyone would ever have anticipated how long it would take to get this to the floor, particularly when we have so many Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who have sponsored, in some form or the other, school prayer, voluntary school prayer amendments. I do have a question, though, that has been raised by some people in my district that have expressed some concerns, and I think I mentioned some of them to the gentleman. In the case of a classroom, as I envision this, say first period in the morning, after rollcall, whatever, should a student lead a school prayer, he or she would have a right to, after the Religious Freedom Amendment is adopted by the requisite number of States, correct?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman knows, I am a cosponsor and have plans to support the gentleman's amendment and congratulate the gentleman who, over the past now, 4 years now, correct?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that the previous speaker spoke about the rise of women's sports. And as the father of two daughters, and someone who enjoys watching my girls participate in soccer, basketball, or whatever, I am glad that there will be a lot more opportunities for them. But I also want to say, as I look at this bill, this is not a matter of what is convenient for Stanford University or for the University of Virginia or the University of Georgia or Berkeley or whatever. This is a matter of putting the kids before the system, putting the kids before the faceless institution. Think about the private sector a minute. We have so many people in our body who talk about disclosure in all aspects of the private sector; worker safety, materials used on job sites, what we eat, what is in the water. Whatever it is. What is in the air. What is being discharged. All of this has to be disclosed, and yet this body, who so readily puts such disclosure mandates on the private sector, now has Members saying let us not put that on the public sector. What is this horrible mandate that we are putting on the public sector? And let me clarify, it is not all public universities. There are private universities. But most of them get some sort of Federal funding in one place or another. Think about this, though. Here is a student who is 17, 18 years old; young boy or girl. They are going off to college. They have worked real hard to get in the school of their choice. Maybe they are going to play baseball, maybe wrestling, maybe lacrosse, maybe swimming, maybe volleyball. They have that opportunity and they are excited about it. And then they get there and find out that they are phasing out the volleyball program or the wrestling program. That was one reason that student chose university A over university B. And now we are saying that our kids are not important enough just to tell them that? Somebody had said, well, we cannot give them a 4-year warning. If my colleagues will read the Hastert proposal, what he is saying is all they have to do is notify the students once they make the decision to phase out a certain athletic program. This, as I said, maybe it is not pro-university, maybe it is not pro- institution, maybe it is not pro-system, but it does become pro-child, pro-student, pro-athlete and, therefore, I think it is pro-sports. The gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) talked with great pride about what sports meant to her six children, and the positive impact that sports programs can have to all of our children is very, very important. So why not be fair to America's kids; that if they enroll in a college or a university that has a sports program, should they not be notified when the college or university has made the decision to phase out that program? That is the only thing that the gentleman from Illinois is trying to get in the bill. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Roemer amendment and vote for the children of the United States of America.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am really disturbed by the allegations against our colleague that he altered tapes. The gentleman from Indiana has not altered any tapes. But I guess what I am also very, very concerned about is why are the Democrats worried about why Web Hubbell was awarded $100,000 from the Indonesian Government after he left the White House? Was it hush money? Why did Revlon Corporation give him $63,000? Why, on these unaltered tapes, did he say I have to roll over for the White House one more time? Why did his wife say here comes the White House squeeze again? Why did 19 members of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 19 Democrat members, refuse to give immunity to four witnesses that the Democrat Department of Justice has already given immunity to? Why are the Democrats not interested in getting to the truth? Why did Monica Lewinsky visit the Oval Office 37 times? Quite a file clerk, huh, Mr. President? Why are these things going on? Why does Ms. McDougal not speak, Mr. Speaker? Why are the Democrats not curious? Mr. Speaker, I have these questions.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Four years to get this done, and I do not think anyone would ever have anticipated how long it would take to get this to the floor, particularly when we have so many Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who have sponsored, in some form or the other, school prayer, voluntary school prayer amendments. I do have a question, though, that has been raised by some people in my district that have expressed some concerns, and I think I mentioned some of them to the gentleman. In the case of a classroom, as I envision this, say first period in the morning, after rollcall, whatever, should a student lead a school prayer, he or she would have a right to, after the Religious Freedom Amendment is adopted by the requisite number of States, correct?

Mr. KINGSTON. What year was this?

Mr. KINGSTON. If the IRS is cracking down on people posting things that are offensive to most people, then obviously, you cannot put up an IRS sign, because that is far more offensive than most of the other items that they are talking about.

Mr. KINGSTON. They are doing such a good job on tax simplification and tax clarity that they have enough time to worry about something that is offensive.

Mr. KINGSTON. This was the IRS?