Lamar Smith

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in support of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service Act. Time and again, former President Bush has served his country with distinction. As a young man, he volunteered to fight for his country in World War II as our Nation's youngest naval aviator. He dedicated his life to national service, serving as a Congressman representing Texas, the Director of the CIA, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, our Ambassador to the Republic of China, and the chairman of the Republican National Committee. In 1980, he was elected Vice President with President Ronald Reagan, and together they led America into the greatest peacetime expansion since World War II. Presidents Reagan and Bush led the world to the end of the cold war. As President, George Bush served with the unquestionable honor and great dignity that is owed to the highest office in our great Nation. America, and indeed the world, was appreciative of his efforts during the Gulf war. The unity that was demonstrated during that conflict--the support of Congress, the support of the American public, and the support of our allies--was a triumph of and a tribute to the steadfast leadership of President Bush. Just as important is George Bush's constant devotion to his family. He and his wife, Barbara, have raised a wonderful family that continue to pass on their shared values of faith, family, honor and service to new generations. As a Texan, I am particularly appreciative of President Bush passing along these values to his children, because he has blessed our State with a great Governor, his son, George W. Bush. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation as a tribute to a World War II aviator, a dedicated public servant, a great President and a truly honorable man--President George Bush.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Gallegly], chairman of the House task force on illegal immigration.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XX, and by direction of the Committee on the Judiciary, I move to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2202) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to improve deterrence of illegal immigration to the United States by increasing border patrol and investigative personnel, by increasing penalties for alien smuggling and for document fraud, by reforming exclusion and deportation law and procedures, by improving the verification system for eligibility for employment, and through other measures, to reform the legal immigration system and facilitate legal entries into the United States, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this is the customary request which will enable us to go to conference on this important bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the motion. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct conferees. The appointment of House conferees for H.R. 2202 marks another important juncture on the road to immigration reform. Hopefully it also means that the final destination is very close. The Immigration in the National Interest Act is just what it says, an effort to fundamentally reorient national immigration policy so that it protects first and foremost the needs of American workers, taxpayers, and families. We worked long and hard within the Committee on the Judiciary to bring this bill to the House floor where it passed by a margin of 333 to 87. Other Senate colleagues also labored intensely to bring forth a slightly different version of this legislation, passed by a vote of 97 to 3. These lopsided majorities clearly reflect the will of the American people, that Congress get serious about immigration reform. Not tomorrow. Not next session. But now. Illegal immigration has reached a crisis. One million permanent illegal aliens enter the country every 2.5 years. Half of these illegal aliens use fraudulent documents to wrongly obtain jobs and government benefits, and one quarter of all Federal prisoners are illegal aliens. Think of the human cost in pain and suffering to innocent victims. Think of the financial cost to taxpayers of incarceration in the criminal justice system. H.R. 2202 will better secure our borders by doubling the number of border patrol agents and cracking down on repeat illegal border crossings. It will increase interior enforcement and make it more difficult for illegal aliens to take jobs away from American citizens. And it will reduce the number of criminal aliens and the flow of illegal drugs into our country. The bill adopts the most comprehensive overhaul of our deportation system in this century. Deportation procedures are streamlined, and opportunities for illegal aliens and criminal aliens to ``game the system'' in order to stay in the United States disappear. Aliens who show up with no documents to legitimately enter the United States will be quickly turned back, rather than be given lengthy immigration hearings to which a vast majority new show up. H.R. 2202 also tackles the pressing problem of immigration and welfare. Our official national policy for almost a century has been that aliens should not be admitted to or remain in the United States if they become a ``public charge''--dependent on welfare. Today, that presumption is turned upside down. Noncitizens receive a disproportionate share of welfare benefits in large States such as California. When all types of benefits are included, immigrants receive $25 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The number of immigrants on Supplemental Security Income increases by 50 percent each year. We cannot continue down this road. America's generosity towards those immigrants who want to work and produce and contribute will continue. But we should not admit immigrants who will live off the American taxpayers. H.R. 2202 ensures that sponsors of immigrants will be legally responsible for those they bring into the country. The bill also ensures that sponsors first have the means to meet this financial commitment. It makes no sense, as current law allows, for sponsor who are themselves on welfare to promise that they will keep the new immigrants they sponsor off of welfare. Obviously, this is a promise that cannot be kept, and the taxpayer foots the bill. This is truly landmark legislation. And it is long overdue. It's time to put the interests of American workers, taxpayers, and families first. It's time to push through to the finish, and complete passage of the Immigration in the National Interest Act. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Gallegly].

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], chairman of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was give permission to revise and extent his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and the Personal Responsibility Act. Welfare has harmed our children, families, and taxpayers. It has created a culture of dependency that saps people's desire to better their lives. And welfare has undermined America's longstanding immigration policy. America has always welcomed new citizens with the energy and commitment to come to our shores to build a better future. We've always ensured that immigrants are self-reliant--not dependent on American taxpayers for support. Since 1917, noncitizens who have become public charges after they enter the United States have been subject to deportation. Welfare undermines this policy and harms immigrants. Rather than promoting hard work, welfare tempts immigrants to come to America to live off the American taxpayer. Noncitizen SSI recipients have increased 580 percent over the past 12 years, and will cost American taxpayers $5 billion this year alone. H.R. 3734 restores America's historic immigrants policy and ends the cruel welfare trap. It ensures that sponsors, not taxpayers, will support new immigrants who fall on hard times. Just as deadbeat dads should support the children they bring into this world, deadbeat sponsors should support the immigrants they bring into our country. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and vote for this bill.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, our children are our country's most precious resource. They are the hope of the future. But today many children will grow up in a cycle of poverty and dependence, and that is a tragedy, Mr. Speaker. Many of us came to Congress on a promise to do something about the failed welfare state. We want to end dependency, we want to encourage personal responsibility, we want to honor work so that welfare does not become a way of life. President Clinton has already vetoed two welfare reform bills despite the promise during his campaign to, ``end welfare as we know it.'' the jury is still out on whether or not the President will sign Congress' third effort to reform the welfare system. Personally, I cannot imagine one logical reason why Mr. Clinton would not sign the current bill. Mr. Speaker, it is a good bill. It is based on common sense. It honors work, family, and personal responsibility.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues want to make the workplace more family friendly, I urge them to vote for the Working Families Flexibility Act. This bill provides working mothers and fathers with the choice of comp time pay or overtime pay. This option empowers employees to balance family needs and career needs. Mr. Chairman, there are some things that money simply cannot buy: time with your children, your parents, or your spouse. Comp time allows workers to choose more of all these things. If Members believe that Congress should live under the same laws that govern the private sector, vote for the Working Families Flexibility Act. Since 1985, Federal, State, and local governments have been able to offer their employees comp time. Do not private sector employees have the same option? This bill says yes. Support the Working Families Flexibility Act for our families, our workers, and our children.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3680 is designed to implement the Geneva conventions for the protection of victims of war. Our colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina, Walter Jones, should be commended for introducing this bill and for his dedication to such a worthy goal. Mr. Speaker, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 codified rules of conduct for military forces to which we have long adhered. In 1955 Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy testified to the Senate that-- The Geneva Conventions are another long step forward towards mitigating the severity of war on its helpless victims. They reflect enlightened practices as carried out by the United States and other civilized countries, and they represent largely what the United States would do, whether or not a party to the Conventions. Our own conduct has served to establish higher standards and we can only benefit by having them incorporated in a stronger body of wartime law. Mr. Speaker, the United States ratified the Conventions in 1955. However, Congress has never passed implementing legislation. The Conventions state that signatory countries are to enact penal legislation punishing what are called grave breaches, actions such as the deliberate killing of prisoners of war, the subjecting of prisoners to biological experiments, the willful infliction of great suffering or serious injury on civilians in occupied territory. While offenses covering grave breaches can in certain instances be prosecutable under present Federal law, even if they occur overseas, there are a great number of instances in which no prosecution is possible. Such nonprosecutable crimes might include situations where American prisoners of war are killed, or forced to serve in the Army of their captors, or American doctors on missions of mercy in foreign war zones are kidnapped or murdered. War crimes are not a thing of the past, and Americans can all too easily fall victim to them. H.R. 3680 was introduced in order to implement the Geneva Conventions. It prescribes severe criminal penalties for anyone convicted of committing, whether inside or outside the United States, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, where the victim or the perpetrator is a member of our Armed Forces. In future conflicts H.R. 3680 may very well deter acts against Americans that violate the laws of war. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia, for his comments, and I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walter Jones, my colleague and friend, and the author of the legislation we are discussing right now.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3680) to amend title 18, United States Code, to carry out the international obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions to provide criminal penalties for certain war crimes.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 740, introduced by the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] and the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen] would permit the Pueblo of Isleta Indian Tribe to file a claim in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for certain aboriginal lands acquired from the tribe by the United States. The tribe was erroneously advised by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in regard to this claim, and as a result never filed a claim for aboriginal lands before the expiration of the statute of limitations. The court's jurisdiction would apply only to claims accruing on or before August 13, 1946, as provided in the Indian Claims Commission Act. The Pueblo of Isleta Tribe seeks the opportunity to present the merits of its aboriginal land claims, which otherwise would be barred as untimely. The tribe cites numerous precedents for conferring jurisdiction under similar circumstances, such as the case of the Zuni Indian Tribe in 1978. An identical bill passed the Senate in the 103d Congress, but was not considered by the House. In the 102d Congress, H.R. 1206, amended to the current language, passed the House, but was not considered by the Senate before adjournment. On June 11, 1996, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported this bill by unanimous voice vote. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 740) to confer jurisdiction on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims with respect to land claims of Pueblo of Isleta Indian Tribe.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of a Commerce, Justice, State, and judiciary appropriations bill. This bill provides $2.1 billion in funding for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That is $30 million more than the administration requested. The funds for the INS in fact represent a 25- percent increase over last year, and they demonstrate Republicans' commitment to reducing illegal immigration. H.R. 3814 provides the necessary funding to hire 1,100 new Border Patrol agents. The administration's request would only have funded 700 new Border Patrol agents. This bill also contains a significant funding increase for the detention and removal of illegal aliens, including 2,700 new detention beds. The administration's request would only have funded 700 detention beds. Funding is critical to the effective implementation of America's immigration policies. I thank Chairman Rogers for the tireless efforts he has made to secure our borders. There is another bill which passed the House in March of this year by a vote of 333 to 87 that also advances immigration reform. H.R. 2202, the Immigration in the National Interest Act, will soon go to conference with the Senate. It will benefit American families, taxpayers and workers by securing the borders, removing criminal and illegal aliens from the country, and ensuring that immigrants are self- reliant. Mr. Chairman, the American people are demanding that we pass comprehensive immigration reform. I urge my colleagues to provide sufficient funding for border security by voting ``yes'' on this bill.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Madam Chairman, I thank my friend from Kansas, Mrs. Meyers, for yielding this time to me. I would like to offer my strong support for H.R. 3734, the Personal Responsibility Act. Welfare hurts people. It hurts those who receive it by creating a culture of dependency that crimps people's desire to benefit themselves and improve their own lives. American taxpayers are willing to help those who need it. But we have grown increasingly tired of footing the bill for those who will not help themselves. Perhaps the most fundamental requirement of America's immigration policy is that immigrants be self-reliant, not dependent on the American taxpayers for support. Since 1882, for over 100 years, those who are likely to become public charges or participate in the welfare system have been inadmissible to our country. Since 1917 noncitizens who become public charges after they enter the United States have, in fact, been subject to deportation. Many immigrants come to America for economic opportunity. In fact, most of them do. However, others come to live off the American taxpayer. Noncitizen welfare recipients of supplemental security income have increased 580 percent over the last 12 years. When all the major welfare programs are added together, studies show that immigrants receive $26 billion each year in welfare assistance. Now, should not those funds rather be going to needy American citizens? This bill complements the House immigration reform bill, H.R. 2202, which passed the House by a vote of 333 to 87. H.R. 2202 prevents illegal aliens from receiving public benefits, enforces the public charge exclusion and deportation provisions of current law and encourages immigrant sponsors to fulfill their financial obligations. It is critical for Congress to send both H.R. 3424 and H.R. 2202 to the President this year. The American people are depending on us to reform America's welfare and immigration policies. President Clinton, after promising to end welfare as we know it, has twice this year vetoed proposals to do just that. Let us hope the administration will finally keep its promise to the American people and sign this bill.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3396, the ``Defense of Marriage Act.'' Many of my colleagues today will give eloquent legal arguments in favor of this legislation. Rather than focus on the legal need for this legislation, I would like to discuss some of the reasons why I feel it is morally necessary. Same-sex ``marriages'' demean the fundamental institution of marriage. They legitimize unnatural and immoral behavior. And they trivialize marriage as a mere ``lifestyle choice.'' The institution of marriage sets a necessary and high standard. Anything that lowers this standard, as same-sex ``marriages'' do, inevitably belittles marriage. Traditional marriage has served across the majority of cultures as a foundation for a stable society. Undermining traditional marriage by forcing States to legalize same-sex ``marriages'' will have far- reaching social consequences. The attempt to legitimize same-sex ``marriages'' threatens our cultural values that have proved their worth down the centuries. Those who seek to overturn our system of values are attempting to achieve not just toleration of their behavior, but full social acceptance as well. We should not undermine the standards that elevate civilization. We must act now to preserve traditional marriage as the foundation of American society. I urge my colleagues to defend the institution of marriage by voting ``yes'' on H.R. 3396. [From the National Review, June 3, 1996] The Misanthrope's Corner (By Florence King) Gay marriage is a consummation devoutly to be missed, but it's a dead cert. If you doubt it, try to remember the last time America turned down a vocal minority. In the Sixties we were the Girl Who Can't Say No, but she was a font of virtue compared to what we are now. Overcome by miasmic gases of diversity and inclusion wafting from the Nineties swamp, we have turned into the Punchdrunk Kid, a twitching lummox with cauliflower ears who mumbles ``Sure, Jake, sure'' to everybody. The preliminary stage of brainwashing is already underway. ``Husband'' and ``wife'' are yielding to ``spouse,'' a vague usage that benefits no one but gays. Gov. Roy Romer recently vetoed Colorado's proposed anti-gay marriage law, calling it ``mean-spirited,'' a word that functions in America like the bell in Pavlov's laboratory. And now Bill Clinton has announced, through his gay-liaison office, that he is ``personally opposed'' to homosexual marriage. This phraseology, a staple of the abortion debate, is a reminder not to let our premises stand in the way of our conclusions. The major brainwashing, soon to begin, will proceed as follows. Magazines will run cover stories that thinking Americans-- all 17 of us--recognize as that brand of persuasion called ``nibbled to death by a duck.'' Time does ``Debating Same-Sex Marriage'' and Newsweek does ``Rethinking Gay Marriage.'' Lofty opinion journals weight in with ``A Symposium on,'' ``In Defense of,'' and ``Voices from,'' while Parade does ``If They Say I do' . . . Will We Say `You Can't' '' Cover art consists of a pair of wedding rings sporting identical biological signs: two arrow-shooting circles for men, two mirror-handle circles for women. We will start seeing these logos in our sleep. Next, the pundits. Molly Ivins writes ``Bubba, Hold Yore Peace.'' Ellen Goodman waxes earnest about tradition versus change in ``Something Old, Something New,'' Ruth Shalit writes something borrowed, and Richard Cohen, Victim America's identifier-in-chief, does a column called ``We're All Single.'' Arianna Huffington will figure out a compassionate way to be against gay marriage, but most conservatives stand to fare badly in this debate. Will Durant wrote, ``When religion submits to reason it begins to die.'' In a media-saturated society teeming with talk-show producers casting dragnets over think tanks, proponents of gay marriage, win merely by being scheduled. By contrast, the conservative instinctively recoils from analyzing eternal verities. He may know the words to legal arguments such as ``the need to show a compelling state interest, etc,'' but he doesn't know the tune. In the final analysis he believes in the sanctity of marriage ``just because.'' To liberals, the just-because mindset betokens racism. Therefore, anyone who opposes gay marriage must hate blacks. Anti-gay marriage laws will be equated with the old anti- miscegenation laws, producing tortured sophistry about ``the difference between race and sex.'' The liberal will claim that all differences are the same, forcing the conservative to claim that some differences are more different than others. Caught in an Orwellian trap, terrified of being called a racist, he will seek safety in a soundbite of chortling folksiness. ``When a baby is born, people don't say `it's white' or `it's black,' they say `it's boy' or `it's girl.' '' Because this makes no sense, it becomes instantly popular. Repeated incessantly on talk shows, it starts running through our heads like the beat-beat-beat of the tom-toms in ``Begin the Beguine,'' intensifying when Bob Dole soundbites it into a back-to-basics vision of blood and sex and whatever in a prime-time press conference. Then Jesse Jackson and the feminists change the word order, ostentatiously placing ``black'' before ``white'' and ``girl'' before ``boy''. Remembering to say it the PC way becomes such an overriding obsession that we forget what it has to do with gay marriage, especially after Clarence Page points out that in slave days the color of a baby was indeed the first thing people noticed. Soon, Republicans panicked by mounting accusations of racism suggest that gay couples be allowed to register their unions and establish common-law marriages based on seven years of cohabitation. But gays reject these half measures, comparing them to the irregular marriages of slavery, when couples ``jumped over the broom.'' All attempts at compromise elicit cries of ``Second-class marriage!'' and lead to lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Calling themselves ``connubially challenged,'' gays will sue the Christian Coalition for forcing them to lead immoral lives. Arguing that marriage will keep them from promiscuity, which will keep them from getting AIDS, they will equate prohibition of same-sex marriage with capital punishment. A Clinton judicial appointee will find the ``right'' to gay marriage lurking under a constitutional penumbra, and CNN will give a 900 number so viewers can vote yes to prove they aren't racists. I find it ironic that gays are now singing the praises of wedded bliss in terms that were the bane of my existence forty years ago, when ``settling down'' proved you were ``mature and responsible.'' If they keep it up, they will corroborate the English prostitute who plied her trade in the States and wound up in a book about American sexual attitudes. A great many of her clients, she said, showed her photos of their wives and children. Clearly bemused, her sign almost audible on the page, she added: ``Yanks are born married.'' My personal opinion of marriage reflects my status as a pariah in the Fifties snuggery of joined-at-the-hip Togetherness. ``Rather a beggar woman and single be, than Queen and married,'' said Elizabeth I, and so say I. My objective opinion, however, conforms with Timothy Dwight: ``It is incomparably better that individuals should suffer than that an institution, which is the basis of all human good, should be shaken or endangered. [From the Washington Post, May 21, 1996] Not a Very Good Idea (By William J. Bennett) We are engaged in a debate which, in a less confused time, would be considered pointless and even oxymoronic: the question of same-sex marriage. But we are where we are. The Hawaii Supreme Court has discovered a new state constitutional ``right''--the legal union of same-sex couples. Unless a ``compelling state interest'' can be shown against them, Hawaii will become the first state to sanction such unions. And if Hawaii legalizes same-sex marriages, other states might well have to recognize them because of the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause. Some in Congress recently introduced legislation to prevent this from happening. Now, anyone who has known someone who has struggled with his homosexuality can appreciate the poignancy, human pain and sense of exclusion that are often involved. One can therefore understand the effort to achieve for homosexual unions both legal recognition and social acceptance. Advocates of homosexual marriages even make what appears to be a sound conservative argument: Allow marriage in order to promote faithfulness and monogamy. This is an intelligent and politically shrewd argument. One can even concede that it might benefit some people. But I believe that overall, allowing same-sex marriages would do significant, long-term social damage. Recognizing the legal union of gay and lesbian couples would represent a profound change in the meaning and definition of marriage. Indeed, it would be the most radical step ever taken in the deconstruction of society's most important institution. It is not a step we ought to take. The function of marriage is not elastic; the institution is already fragile enough. Broadening its definition to include same-sex marriages would stretch it almost beyond recognition--and new attempts to broaden the definition still further would surely follow. On what principled grounds could the advocates of same-sex marriage oppose the marriage of two consenting brothers? How could they explain why we ought to deny a marriage license to a bisexual who wants to marry two people? After all, doing so would be a denial of that person's sexuality. In our time, there are more (not fewer) reasons than ever to preserve the essence of marriage. Marriage is not an arbitrary constrict; it is an ``honorable estate'' based on the different, complementary nature of men and women--and how they refine, support, encourage and complete one another. To insist that we maintain this traditional understanding of marriage is not an attempt to put others down. It is simply an acknowledgment and celebration of our most precious and important social act. Nor is this view arbitrary or idiosyncratic. It mirrors the accumulated wisdom of millennia and the teaching of every major religion. Among worldwide cultures, where there are so few common threads, it is not a coincidence that marriage is almost universally recognized as an act meant to unite a man and a woman. To say that same-sex unions are not comparable to heterosexual marriages is not an argument for intolerance, bigotry or lack of compassion (although I am fully aware that it will be considered so by some). But it is an argument for making distinctions in law about relationships that are themselves distinct. Even Andrew Sullivan, among the most intelligent advocates of same-sex marriage, has admitted that a homosexual marriage contract will entail a greater understanding of the need for ``extramarital outlets.'' He argues that gay male relationships are served by the ``openness of the contract,'' and he has written that homosexuals should resist allowing their ``varied and complicated lives'' to be flattened into a ``single, moralistic model.'' But this ``single, moralistic model'' is precisely the point. The marriage commitment between a man and a woman does not--it cannot--countenance extramarital outlets. By definition it is not an open contract; its essential idea is fidelity. Obviously that is not always honored in practice. But it is normative, the ideal to which we aspire precisely because we believe some things are right (faithfulness in marriage) and others are wrong (adultery). In insisting that marriage accommodate the less restrained sexual practices of homosexuals, Sullivan and his allies destroy the very thing that supposedly has drawn them to marriage in the first place. There are other arguments to consider against same-sex marriage--for example, the signals it would send, and the impact of such signals on the shaping of human sexuality, particularly among the young. Former Harvard professor E.L. Pattullo has written that ``a very substantial number of people are born with the potential to live either straight or gay lives.'' Societal indifference about heterosexuality and homosexuality would cause a lot of confusion. A remarkable 1993 article in The Post supports this point. Fifty teenagers and dozens of school counselors and parents from the local area were interviewed. According to the article, teenagers said it has become ``cool'' for students to proclaim they are gay or bisexual--even for some who are not. Not surprisingly, the caseload of teenagers in ``sexual identity crisis'' doubled in one year. ``Everything is front page, gay and homosexual,'' according to one psychologist who works with the schools. ``Kids are jumping on it . . . [counselors] are saying, `What are we going to do with all these kids proclaiming they are bisexual or homosexual when we know they are not?' '' If the law recognizes homosexual marriages as the legal equivalent of heterosexual marriages, it will have enormous repercussions in many areas. Consider just two: sex education in the school and adoption. The sex education curriculum of public schools would have to teach that heterosexual and homosexual marriage are equivalent. ``Heather Has Two Mommies'' would no longer be regarded as an anomaly; it would more likely become a staple of sex education curriculum. Parents who want their children to be taught (for both moral and utilitarian reasons) the privileged status of heterosexual marriage will be portrayed as intolerant bigots; they will necessarily be at odds with the new law of matrimony and its derivative curriculum. Homosexual couples will also have equal claim with heterosexual couples in adopting children, forcing us (in law at least) to deny what we know to be true: that it is far better for a child to be raised by a mother and a father than by, say, two male homosexuals. The institution of marriage is already reeling because of the effects of the sexual revolution, no-fault divorce and out-of-wedlock births. We have reaped the consequences of its devaluation. It is exceedingly imprudent to conduct a radical, untested and inherently flawed social experiment on an institution that is the keystone in the arch of civilization. That we have to debate this issue at all tells us that the arch has slipped. Getting it firmly back in place is, as the lawyers say, a ``compelling state interest.''

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, this is not a debate about whether to fund family planning or title X. The only question is whether we believe that parents should raise our children or whether we think that government officials should raise our sons and daughters. Parents must consent before their children attend field trips, if their children are absent from school, for their children to receive treatment for a twisted ankle, and parents must consent for their children to participate in sports after school. Should this same parent not also have to consent before their children receives contraceptives or treatment for a sexually transmitted illness? That is the only issue raised by the Istook amendment. Without this amendment, when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptives and planning families, parents need not apply. The Istook amendment puts parents first again. It says that what is common sense for movies, fields trips and football should also apply to serious medical treatment.