Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price), a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I want to further elaborate on the last point in this amendment's attack on religious liberty in the United States, that in fact the interpretation in the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the language permitting religious organizations to staff on a religious basis in matters concerning employment when they receive Federal funds, in a unanimous decision. Finding that the exemption did not violate the establishment clause, the Supreme Court has made it clear that it is ``a permissible legislative purpose to alleviate significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions.'' Even where the content of their activities is secular, in the sense that activities do not include religious teaching, proselytizing, or worship, and it is very important for everybody to understand, we all agree you cannot have prayer, you cannot proselytize, you cannot use government funds for anything but a secular purpose in job training, Justice Brennan, hardly a conservative, said that even if a religious organization is providing job training, which would be a secular thing, it is likely to be infused with a religious purpose. In other words, the motivation of the individuals probably is religious. He also recognized that churches and other religious entities ``often regard the provision of such services as a means of fulfilling religious duty and of providing an example of the way of life a church seeks to foster.'' He is perhaps one of the greatest liberal justices of all time. And then he recognized that preserving the title VII protections when religious organizations engage in social services is a necessary element of religious freedom. This attempt to redefine the Supreme Court in today's debate is unfortunate. It is, in my opinion, bigotry against many religious people in the United States who would like to provide assistance to the poor, who would like to leverage their funds, their volunteer time, their churches, but are being told that even though they accept everybody in, even though they cannot proselytize with it, that they are not welcome to participate, they are going to have their liberties taken away. For example, a case we often hear, well, they can set up a 501(c)3 or not have that reach, but Catholic Charities, an organization that historically has taken funds and it is often held up, the California Supreme Court just said that because Catholic Charities offers secular services to clients and does not directly preach Catholic values, it is therefore not a religious organization. Therefore, the court ruled that Catholic Charities must provide services contrary to their religious principles. Furthermore, as we take the logical extension of this which we are dealing with in whether we provide buses and computers to private schools and which will certainly come up in education bills in front of our committee, one of the questions is, if those funds run through the bishop's office, does in fact the reach of the funds that go for buses and for computers, which the court has ruled a computer does not do the proselytizing, the software does the proselytizing, will this reach back in because the governance of Catholic Charities ultimately comes back to the bishop's office? Court rulings are increasingly tilting that direction because we have falsely interpreted what is religious liberty in the United States and that we have to make it clear in these bills which, as the chairman has pointed out, have passed this House multiple times, the President of the United States in many of these was not President Bush pushing a faith-based initiative, but President Clinton. And as the Member from Maryland has pointed out, he did not enthusiastically say this was going to be upheld; but the fact is over the objections of many on his side, he supported it. Former Vice President Gore has said specifically that religious organizations should not have to change their religious character in order to participate. What does religious character mean? It means that if you are an Orthodox Jewish group and you are going to serve everybody in your community, that you get to be an Orthodox Jewish group; if you are an evangelical group that believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that people who represent your organization should share that belief; if you are a Muslim group, that people who represent that group should share that. The fundamental question here is, and through my Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Human Services we held eight hearings across the United States and we had a great debate in every region of the country, but many organizations came forth, whether they were Muslim, Jewish or Christian in some form, and said, we cannot compromise the nature of our faith if you are going to make us change our hiring practices. So what we are saying, by trying to take away their religious liberty, if they want to provide secular services, that we are discriminating and changing policy contrary to what President Clinton has supported, contrary to what President Bush has supported, contrary to the different nominees of both parties; and it will be a sad day if this Congress after bipartisan efforts for the last 5 to 8 years to push this type of legislation to allow these faith-based groups at the table would go backwards and say, you are no longer welcome, you are not invited to help anymore, you are off the table. I believe that the Members, and I know one argument is that we had these debates in the middle of the night, I believe Members actually looked at those bills and they knew what they were voting for, and I hope they will not flip-flop today.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to call attention to the work of organizations that seek the legalization of illicit drugs in our country, to the detriment of the health and safety of our citizens. On January 4, 2005, the Washington Post published an article entitled ``Exhale, Stage Left,'' chronicling the career of Keith Stroup, the founder and retiring executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). This article sheds light on some of the operations and claims of such organizations, and I ask that it be entered into the Record. Particularly disturbing in this story is the entanglement of the drug legalization group with those who stand to profit from others' addiction--drug traffickers. The Washington Post article describes that one of the major early financial backers of NORML was ``the legendary pot smuggler'' Tom Forcade. To collect donations, Stroup even went to Forcade's ``stash house,'' which was ``filled with bales of marijuana.'' Certainly we can understand why a drug smuggler would contribute generously to efforts to legalize drugs like marijuana--with so much product to move, this man had a vested financial interest in making harmful drugs easier for people to obtain. But what kind of group takes money from such a criminal? Do we really want our laws ``reformed'' by efforts funded by criminal enterprises? Yet according to the article, it had seemed ``perfectly normal for NORML to call a dope smuggler when it ran short of cash.'' Drug legalization groups like to claim that marijuana is not really harmful and that it does not serve as a ``gateway'' to the use of other dangerous drugs. In fact, on its website, NORML claims, ``There is no conclusive evidence that the effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent use of other illicit drugs.'' Perhaps NORML needs to look back at the experiences of its own leaders to re-examine such an assertion. The Post article describes how Stroup and his colleagues themselves moved onto other drugs in the 1970s: ``Privately, he and his NORML pals joked about forming an advocacy group for another drug they'd begun to enjoy--cocaine.'' I'm sure that the families who have suffered through the heartaches of cocaine addiction could inform NORML that cocaine abuse is no laughing matter. Stroup has come to realize that as well, admitting that his own use of cocaine may have led to lapses in professional judgment and that he knows now that ``[c]ocaine is deadly.'' Once, though, he had thought cocaine harmless. If he was wrong about cocaine, might he not likewise be wrong in presuming marijuana harmless? In an attempt to make marijuana sound ``harmless,'' drug legalization groups also try to downplay the addictive qualities of marijuana. NORML states on its website, ``While the scientific community has yet to achieve full consensus on this matter, the majority of epidemiological and animal data demonstrate that the reinforcing properties of marijuana in humans is low in comparison to other drugs of abuse . . .'' Yet the leaders of legalization themselves exhibit not simply social or occasional use of marijuana, but regular consumption of it. According to the article, Stroup smokes pot ``nearly every night'' as he watches the evening news. Our citizens--especially our youth--need to understand the real danger of dependence on marijuana. It's not as innocuous as legalizers would have us believe. As the Office of National Drug Control Policy has reported, ``According to the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 4.3 million Americans were classified with dependence on or abuse of marijuana. That figure represents 1.8 percent of the total U.S. population and 60.3 percent of those classified as individuals who abuse or are dependent on illicit drugs . . . What makes this all the more disturbing is that marijuana use has been shown to be three times more likely to lead to dependence among adolescents than among adults.'' We need to be aware of marijuana's harms. Last year NIDA Director Nora Volkow testified at a hearing before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which I chair. Dr. Volkow attested to the health risks associated with marijuana, saying, ``There are numerous deleterious health consequences associated with short and long-term marijuana use, including the possibility of becoming addicted. During the period of intoxication, marijuana disrupts short- term memory, attention, judgment, as well as other cognitive functions. In addition, marijuana has also been shown to impair coordination and balance, and can increase an individual's heart rate.'' Marijuana, Dr. Volkow testified, can affect the entire body: ``New research is also showing us that marijuana can affect almost every organ in the body, from the central nervous system to the cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory/pulmonary, and immune systems. Because marijuana is typically rolled into a cigarette or `joint' and smoked, it has been shown to greatly impact the respiratory system and increases the likelihood of some cancers.'' Marijuana use is connected to lifelong difficulties for our youth: ``Also, we are finding that early exposure to marijuana is associated with an increased likelihood of a lifetime of subsequent drug problems.'' With all the risks that marijuana poses, we cannot afford to allow drug legalization groups to perpetuate their myths about the ``harmlessness'' of marijuana--especially when even their own history casts doubt on the validity of their claims. [From the Washington Post, Jan. 4, 2005] Exhale, Stage Left: At 61, Longtime Marijuana Lobby Leader Keith Stroup Is Finally Leaving the Joint (By Peter Carlson) Keith Stroup's mouth is dry. His brain is foggy. America's most famous marijuana lobbyist admits that a powerful drug has messed up his mind. The drug isn't marijuana, although he smokes that nearly every night. It's Tylenol cold medicine. He took some this morning, he says, and it made him feet goofy, spacey, stoned. ``I hate taking it,'' he says. ``But my nose was running and I kept sneezing and I thought, 'I gotta take something.' '' Wearing a bright white shirt and dark blue suit, Stroup is sitting at his impeccably neat desk in the tidy K Street offices of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He founded NORML back in 1970 and now, 34 years later, he's retiring at 61 as the pot lobby's executive director. ``When I turned 60, I looked in the mirror and I saw this gray-haired old man and I said, `I think we need younger leadership,' '' he explains. ``It has to do with more energy, fresh perspectives, new ideas. It's not like I'm ready for the old folks' home. I just think we need somebody younger running the organization.'' That somebody is Allen St. Pierre, 39, who has served as NORML's second-in-command for the past decade. St. Pierre took over yesterday, while Stroup, who recently got married for the third time, headed off to his Falls Church home to become a consultant and lecturer. But now, Stroup, stoned on cold medicine and nostalgia, starts showing off the strange souvenirs of his strange lobbying career. He pulls a black-and-white photo off the wall. It shows him in jeans and a jacket addressing a crowd of hippies in front of the White House in the '70s. ``We used to have a July 4 smoke-in every year in Lafayette Park,'' he says. ``I like this just as a period piece. Look at those ragtag folks! Look at the guys without their shirts on!'' He points to a poster on the wall and reads its message aloud: ``It's only a weed that turns to a flower in your mind.'' He laughs. ``That's a period piece, too.'' Decorating his filing cabinet are stickers--``Just Say Yes to Legalization''--and a backstage pass from a Willie Nelson concert. Nelson, famously fond of the weed, is a longtime NORML supporter. ``Over the years, we've built up a nice friendship,'' Stroup says. ``He's going to sponsor a celebrity NORML golf tournament in 2005.'' Stoned golf? Stroup laughs. ``It's a lot less competitive,'' he says. He picks up a picture frame that contains a typed letter. It's the note that accompanied $10,000 in cash left on the doorstep of NORML's office in the summer of 1976. ``Officially, it was an anonymous gift,'' Stroup says, smiling mischievously, ``but I knew who it was.'' The money came from Tom Forcade, the legendary pot smuggler who founded High Times, the marijuana magazine, in 1974 and helped bankroll NORML before he committed suicide in 1978. Forcade's letter claimed the $10,000 was a donation from ``The Confederation,'' a fictitious group of dope growers and smugglers. It concluded: ``Karma prevails. Venceremos.'' Stroup turned that gift into a media event, calling a news conference and spreading the well-worn $10 and $20 bills across a table for photographers. Today Stroup is a bit embarrassed by that publicity stunt. ``It was a little close to the line,'' he says. ``I was nervous about the whole thing going down, but I played along with it. If I did that today, the FBI and the DEA would have me before a grand jury in no time.'' Back in the '70s, though, it seemed perfectly normal for NORML to call a dope smuggler when it ran short of cash. One day, Stroup recalls, he called Forcade for a donation and the smuggler told him to come to an address on New York's Lower East Side. ``I got up there and it's an apartment with no electricity,'' he says, ``and I walk in the door and the whole room is filled with bales of marijuana! It was a stash house! And I'm saying, `Forcade, what are you doing? I don't know if I'm being followed.' But we needed the money and I took the money,'' There was a time, back in the '70s, when Keith Stroup was about as close to a rock star as Washington lobbyists ever get. He hung out with the Allman Brothers and Jimmy Buffett. He partied with Willie Nelson and presidential son Chip Carter. He had sex in the fabled grotto at the Playboy mansion, where Hugh Hefner hosted a NORML fundraiser. The man they called ``Mr. Marijuana'' grew up on a farm in southern Illinois. His mother was a devout Baptist. His father was a building contractor and Republican Party activist who stashed a bottle of whiskey under the front seat of his Lincoln Continental so he could take a snort when his wife wasn't looking. Stroup graduated from the University of Illinois in 1965-- after a one-year expulsion for drunken frat boy high jinks-- and headed for Washington. He enrolled in Georgetown Law School and, using his dad's GOP connections, landed a $50-a- week job in the office of Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois. The work was dull, but it gave Stroup a taste for Capitol Hill wheeling and dealing. Meanwhile he'd begun smoking pot and marching in antiwar demonstrations, sometimes simultaneously. He finished law school in 1968, got married and took a job on the newly formed federal Commission on Product Safety. That job put Stroup in contact with Ralph Nader, then a hot young consumer advocate. Inspired by Nader's work, Stroup got an idea: He'd create a consumer group for pot smokers, an organization to lobby for legalization. It was the kind of pipe dream that floated through the heads of countless pot smokers during long nights of deep inhaling, but Stroup actually did it--hustling $5,000 in seed money from the Playboy Foundation and opening an office in his basement near Dupont Circle. ``Keith was a rebel, and he resented the idea that his government treated him as a criminal because of a drug that he and millions of other people used,'' says Patrick Anderson, author of ``High in America,'' a 1981 book on Stroup and NORML. Stroup didn't dress like a rebel, though. He wore a suit and tie, like every other Washington lawyer-lobbyist. ``He was consciously trying to be an alternative to the freak approach, which he knew wasn't going to work,'' Anderson says. Courting respectability, Stroup assembled a board of directors that included Harvard professors, former attorney general Ramsey Clark and, later, Sens. Phil Hart and Jacob Javits. Pumped with zeal, Stroup went anywhere to make his pitch, appearing on TV, lecturing at colleges, testifying before Congress and state legislatures. In 1972, Stroup got unexpected help from an unlikely source: The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, appointed by President Nixon, issued its final report, concluding that marijuana is relatively harmless and that possession of less than an ounce should be legal. Nixon rejected the report, but Stroup used it as a lobbying tool in his increasingly successful campaign to reduce penalties for pot. In 1975, five states--Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine and Ohio--removed criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the weed. In 1976, Jimmy Carter, who during his campaign had advocated decriminalizing pot, was elected president. In 1977, Stroup visited the White House to meet with Carter's drug policy adviser, Peter Bourne. Soon NORML would be playing the White House in softball. It seemed like high times for NORML. Publicly, Stroup predicted that pot would be legal in a couple of years. Privately, he and his NORML pals joked about forming an advocacy group for another drug they'd begun to enjoy-- cocaine. Then Stroup hit a couple of snags. In October 1977, Canadian customs agents found a joint in Stroup's pocket and busted him. That wasn't too bad: Canada had liberal pot laws and when Stroup returned for trial in 1978, the judge let him off with a $100 fine. But at the airport on his way home, Canadian customs agents searched his bags and found a joint and a vial containing traces of cocaine. Busted again, he spent the night in jail, was fined $300 and got kicked out of Canada. The whole absurd episode was like a bad joke. How can you tell if you might be a little too stoned? You get busted going through customs with dope after your trial for going though customs with dope. That was a dumb blunder. But Stroup was about to make a blunder that was infinitely dumber. Back in Washington, he was lobbying for a bill to ban Federal funding of a controversial program that sprayed Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat, shown to cause lung damage in people who smoked the tainted weed. Stroup asked Bourne, Carter's drug adviser, to support the bill. Bourne refused. Stroup was outraged. To him, it was a moral issue: The feds were deliberately poisoning pot smokers! Seeking revenge, Stroup leaked a secret to newspaper columnist Jack Anderson in July 1978: Bourne had snorted cocaine at NORMIL's 1977 Christmas party. And Stroup revealed the names of a couple of witnesses. When Anderson broke the story, Bourne told reporters he'd only handled cocaine at the NORML party, he hadn't actually snorted any. It didn't matter, Bourne lost his job. A few months later, so did Stroup. The folks at NORML didn't like snitches and eased him out the door. ``When I look back on it,'' Stroup says now, ``it was probably the stupidest thing I ever did.'' Nobody ``in their rational mind,'' he adds, would jeopardize a relationship with a high White House official over a minor policy dispute. Is it possible that he wasn't in his ``rational mind'' because he was too stoned too often? ``Yes,'' he says. ``I think it is possible that my own personal use of cocaine played into that.'' In those days he, like many people, thought coke was harmless. Now he knows better. ``Cocaine is deadly,'' he says. ``There are probably people who can use cocaine moderately. But I gotta tell you: Based on me and my friends, I didn't see very many of them.'' After leaving NORML in 1979, Stroup spent four years as a defense attorney. ``Every client I had was a drug offender,'' he says, ``The only people who'd heard of me had been arrested on drug charges.'' Unfortunately they weren't the kind of drug offenders he liked--folks who'd been caught with a little weed. They were mostly cocaine smugglers and, he soon realized, a lot of them were thugs. ``So I stepped aside,'' he says, ``and went back into public-interest work.'' Stroup, who had divorced in the early'70s, married a television producer and moved to Boston, where he became a lobbyist for the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. In 1986 he moved back to Washington to lobby for a family farm organization. In 1989 he became executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 1994 he became a lobbyist for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an Alexandria-based prison reform group. Then in 1995, NORML--split by infighting--asked Stroup to come back and run the place. He returned to find that everything had changed. The movement to legalize marijuana had run aground. In the 1970s, 11 states had decriminalized pot; in the '80s, none did. Nancy Reagan's ``Just say no'' crusade and the deadly spread of crack cocaine had led to a backlash against drugs. And NORML was nearly broke, politically impotent and beset by feuding factions. Stroup saved NORML from self-destruction, St. Pierre says, but he failed to bring back the glory days: ``Keith could not replicate what he did in the '70s.'' Part of Stroup's problem was competition. In the '90s, two new groups arose to advocate drug-law reform, each bankrolled by an eccentric billionaire. The Drug Policy Alliance is funded by financier George Soros. The Marijuana Policy Project, founded by former NORML staffer Rob Kampia, is funded by insurance mogul Peter Lewis. Both groups have spent millions on state referendums to legalize medical marijuana-- many successful, some not. But Stroup has failed to find an eccentric billionaire sugar daddy for NORML. ``I wish we had that kind of funding,'' he says. ``if I bad the kind of funding that Kampia has, I think I could have done a lot more with it than he has.'' Now NORML limps by on about $750,000 a year, most of it raised from dues paid by about 12,000 members. It's not enough money to do much politicking, so NORML is now largely a service organization for pot smokers, providing tips on beating drug tests and legal advice for arrested smokers. Over the past year money was so tight that Stroup laid off two staffers and stopped collecting his $75,000-a-year salary for two months. ``I view NORML as a small and shrinking dinosaur,'' Kampia says. ``NORML's time has come and gone.'' Tom Riley, official spokesman for federal drug czar John Walters, agrees. ``Keith and people like that have banged their heads against the wall for years saying `Legalize pot.' But they're farther behind now than they were 20 years ago.'' Riley says Stroup's career reminds him of a line from the movie ``The Big Lebowski''; ``The '60s are over, Lebowski. The bums lost. My condolences.'' ``I have no doubt I'll be smoking marijuana the day I die,'' Stroup says. He loves the weed. He smokes it nearly every night. He comes home from work, pours a glass of chardonnay, lights up a joint and turns on the TV news. He does not smoke pot when he has to work or drive, he says, because, as the movies of stoner comedians Cheech and Chong prove, pot can make you stupid. ``I learned a long time ago that some of those Cheech and Chong jokes are very real,'' he says. ``If you're in a social setting and you're smoking marijuana, there are going to be a lot of those Cheech and Chong situations, where you feel real strongly about something and you start a conversation and about halfway through you forget what the point was.'' He laughs. ``But that's only when you're stoned. Four hours later, you don't have that.'' His new wife doesn't share his passion for pot. Neither does his 35-year-old daughter, who recently had a baby boy, making Stroup a grandfather. He doesn't care that they don't smoke pot and he doesn't think anybody should care that he does smoke it. Forty years of serious inhaling, he claims, hasn't harmed his body or his mind. ``There's absolutely nothing wrong with it,'' he says, ``and it should be of no interest or concern to the government.'' Despite his candor on the topic, Stroup hasn't been busted since his Canadian misadventures. But he knows the government and its drug war are always out there, and that can make a guy paranoid. About a year ago, the feds nearly discovered Stroup's stash in a suitcase he'd checked on a plane. ``I had a few joints in an airtight thing inside a sock so you couldn't see it,'' he says. ``I got back home and opened it up and there was this slip saying, `We opened your bag, blah, blah blah.' And my weed is a few inches away! I said, `Man, that was too close!' So I no longer carry anything when I'm flying. If I'm going to be someplace for a few days, I ship myself a `care package.' '' The next day Stroup calls, leaves a message on the voice mail. ``Man, I was totally goofy yesterday on that cold medicine,'' he says. ``I hope I wasn't totally goofy in my responses. . . . I should have better sense than to do an interview when I'm stoned out of my mind on cold medicine.''

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to call attention to the work of organizations that seek the legalization of illicit drugs in our country, to the detriment of the health and safety of our citizens. On January 4, 2005, the Washington Post published an article entitled ``Exhale, Stage Left,'' chronicling the career of Keith Stroup, the founder and retiring executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). This article sheds light on some of the operations and claims of such organizations, and I ask that it be entered into the Record. Particularly disturbing in this story is the entanglement of the drug legalization group with those who stand to profit from others' addiction--drug traffickers. The Washington Post article describes that one of the major early financial backers of NORML was ``the legendary pot smuggler'' Tom Forcade. To collect donations, Stroup even went to Forcade's ``stash house,'' which was ``filled with bales of marijuana.'' Certainly we can understand why a drug smuggler would contribute generously to efforts to legalize drugs like marijuana--with so much product to move, this man had a vested financial interest in making harmful drugs easier for people to obtain. But what kind of group takes money from such a criminal? Do we really want our laws ``reformed'' by efforts funded by criminal enterprises? Yet according to the article, it had seemed ``perfectly normal for NORML to call a dope smuggler when it ran short of cash.'' Drug legalization groups like to claim that marijuana is not really harmful and that it does not serve as a ``gateway'' to the use of other dangerous drugs. In fact, on its website, NORML claims, ``There is no conclusive evidence that the effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent use of other illicit drugs.'' Perhaps NORML needs to look back at the experiences of its own leaders to re-examine such an assertion. The Post article describes how Stroup and his colleagues themselves moved onto other drugs in the 1970s: ``Privately, he and his NORML pals joked about forming an advocacy group for another drug they'd begun to enjoy--cocaine.'' I'm sure that the families who have suffered through the heartaches of cocaine addiction could inform NORML that cocaine abuse is no laughing matter. Stroup has come to realize that as well, admitting that his own use of cocaine may have led to lapses in professional judgment and that he knows now that ``[c]ocaine is deadly.'' Once, though, he had thought cocaine harmless. If he was wrong about cocaine, might he not likewise be wrong in presuming marijuana harmless? In an attempt to make marijuana sound ``harmless,'' drug legalization groups also try to downplay the addictive qualities of marijuana. NORML states on its website, ``While the scientific community has yet to achieve full consensus on this matter, the majority of epidemiological and animal data demonstrate that the reinforcing properties of marijuana in humans is low in comparison to other drugs of abuse . . .'' Yet the leaders of legalization themselves exhibit not simply social or occasional use of marijuana, but regular consumption of it. According to the article, Stroup smokes pot ``nearly every night'' as he watches the evening news. Our citizens--especially our youth--need to understand the real danger of dependence on marijuana. It's not as innocuous as legalizers would have us believe. As the Office of National Drug Control Policy has reported, ``According to the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 4.3 million Americans were classified with dependence on or abuse of marijuana. That figure represents 1.8 percent of the total U.S. population and 60.3 percent of those classified as individuals who abuse or are dependent on illicit drugs . . . What makes this all the more disturbing is that marijuana use has been shown to be three times more likely to lead to dependence among adolescents than among adults.'' We need to be aware of marijuana's harms. Last year NIDA Director Nora Volkow testified at a hearing before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which I chair. Dr. Volkow attested to the health risks associated with marijuana, saying, ``There are numerous deleterious health consequences associated with short- and long-term marijuana use, including the possibility of becoming addicted. During the period of intoxication, marijuana disrupts short- term memory, attention, judgment, as well as other cognitive functions. In addition, marijuana has also been shown to impair coordination and balance, and can increase an individual's heart rate.'' Marijuana, Dr. Volkow testified, can affect the entire body: ``New research is also showing us that marijuana can affect almost every organ in the body, from the central nervous system to the cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory/pulmonary, and immune systems. Because marijuana is typically rolled into a cigarette or `joint' and smoked, it has been shown to greatly impact the respiratory system and increases the likelihood of some cancers.'' Marijuana use is connected to lifelong difficulties for our youth: ``Also, we are finding that early exposure to marijuana is associated with an increased likelihood of a lifetime of subsequent drug problems.'' With all the risks that marijuana poses, we cannot afford to allow drug legalization groups to perpetuate their myths about the ``harmlessness'' of marijuana--especially when even their own history casts doubt on the validity of their claims.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for S. 2845, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress and the Bush administration have taken strong, decisive action to respond to the attacks and to make our country safer from future attacks. This legislation is only the latest step taken by Congress and the Bush administration to improve our security. I applaud the efforts of my colleagues on the conference committee and in the House leadership to bring this compromise legislation to the floor. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, I would like to highlight two provisions of the bill that address the dangers drug trafficking poses to homeland security. The first strengthens and clarifies the role of the Counternarcotics Officer at the Department of Homeland Security; the second requires that drug enforcement activities be one of the benchmarks for relevant employee performance appraisals at DHS. I thank Speaker Dennis Hastert and Chairman Tom Davis of the Government Reform Committee for their help in securing this language in the bill, which will improve the Department's anti-drug efforts. As President Bush noted in December 2001, just a few months after the 9/11 attacks, ``[T]he traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists . . . terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder.'' The huge profits created by drug trafficking have financed and will continue to finance terrorism throughout the world. Recognizing the central importance of stopping terrorist financing, the 9/11 Commission reported, ``Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The government has recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.''--9/11 Commission Report, 382. The connections between drugs and terrorism are well-documented. In testimony before the Subcommittee on February 26, 2004, the State Department provided declassified information showing that in Afghanistan, for example, two terrorist insurgent groups--the Taliban and the Hib-I Islami/Gulbuddin (HIG)--``almost definitely'' are financed by drug money, and ``most likely'' are provided with logistical support by drug traffickers. Two other groups--Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)--``probably'' receive at least logistical support from drug traffickers, and some reports suggest that they receive funds from drug trafficking as well. This narco-terrorist connection has existed for a long time in many other parts of the world, such as Colombia and Southeast Asia. In fact, 47 percent of the 36 Foreign Terrorist Organizations designated by the Department of State in October 2003 (including three terrorist groups that control almost all the international cocaine market) are on record with DEA as having ties to the drug trade. Strong Department of Homeland Security action against drug trafficking is therefore vital to our overall efforts to stop the financing of terrorist activities. It was for this reason that Congress specifically provided in 2002 that the primary mission of the Department included the responsibility to ``monitor connections between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism, coordinate efforts to sever such connections, and otherwise contribute to efforts to interdict illegal drug trafficking''--6 U.S.C. III(b)(1)(G). The provisions I proposed will promote two key objectives to deprive terrorists of their means of financing their operations: first, strengthening the effectiveness of the Department's narcotics interdiction efforts; and second, improving coordination and cooperation among the Department's subdivisions and between the Department and other agencies with counterterrorism missions. As the 9/ 11 Commission reported, ``We recommend significant changes in the organization of the government. . . . Good people can overcome bad structures. They should not have to.''--See 9/11 Commission Report, 399. The first provision, Section 7407, replaces the current position of ``Counternarcotics Officer'' (contained in the original 2002 Act) with an Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, headed by a Director. The first Counternarcotics Officer faced great difficulties in carrying out the mission Congress asked of him. Unfortunately, the current law gives him no authority to hire staff to assist him, and fails to clearly define how the Counternarcotics Officer is to carry out his responsibilities. The bill before us would rectify this problem by: Replacing the Counternarcotics Officer with a Director of Counternarcotics Enforcement, subject to Senate confirmation and reporting directly to the Secretary. Assigning specific responsibilities to the new Director, including oversight of DHS counterdrug activities and the submission of reports to Congress; and Authorizing permanent staff assigned to an Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement to assist the Director. The second provision, Section 7408, ensures that DHS employees involved in counternarcotics activities will be evaluated in part on the basis of such activities. It is vital that the Department of Homeland Security continue to encourage its law enforcement personnel to maintain their efforts to stop illegal drug trafficking. I do believe that progress is being made. Recently, the Coast Guard, the legacy Customs Service, and other Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and DEA, joined together to make a record seizure of an estimated total of 27 tons of cocaine found on fishing vessels near the Galapagos Islands. These record breaking seizures are an excellent example of what can be accomplished if the Department of Homeland Security continues to improve intelligence sharing and inter- agency cooperation. Mr. Speaker, we can win the war on terror. And we can take effective action against the narco-terrorists who plague our communities and destabilize democracies throughout the world by passing this bill.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to extend my congratulations to Mr. James W. Pyles of Elkhart, Indiana, for his recent election as board chairman of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). Mr. Pyles is the first African-American to lead this national nonprofit organization in its 40-year history, and I know he will lead SCORE well in its efforts to train and counsel small business owners and entrepreneurs. Mr. Pyles is an energetic and passionate man who believes strongly in the mission of SCORE. His 34-year experience in the sales and marketing departments at Bayer Corporation, in addition to his experience as a manager of a real estate management firm, will serve him well in his new capacity as board chairman. SCORE, which is funded by Congress, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. During its existence, SCORE has assisted more than 6.7 million Americans with online and face-to-face small business counseling. There are 800 offices nationwide with more than 12,500 volunteer counselors who provide individual counseling and business workshops for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. Small businesses are critical to this nation's economy, having generated 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs annually over the past decade. Small businesses also employ 50 percent of the country's private workforce and represent more than 97 percent of all exporters of goods. I commend SCORE for its efforts to strengthen and assist small businesses across the country, and I urge more people to use SCORE services or get involved as a volunteer counselor. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include a copy of the press announcement regarding Mr. Pyles' election to the chairmanship of SCORE in today's Congressional Record. And, I urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating Mr. Pyles on his recent election. We wish him the best in his 2-year service as SCORE board chairman. James W. Pyles Elected Board Chair of SCORE First African-American to Lead SCORE in its 40-Year History Washington, DC.--SCORE announces the election of James W. Pyles of Elkhart, Ind., as the board chair for this national nonprofit organization dedicated to small business counseling and training. He is the first African-American to lead the Service Corps of Retired Executives in its 40-year history, SCORE, which is funded by Congress, provides free business counseling as well as workshops and seminars to more than 350,000 aspiring and existing small business owners. SCORE has a national network of 10,500 volunteers, each with business management and small business experience. Pyles will lead SCORE's efforts to increase the number of entrepreneurs it serves, improve quality and recruit new volunteers to

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the artistic achievements of students at Whitko High School in South Whitley, Indiana. Whitko High School was one of 11 schools in the United States that recently participated in the 35th World School Children's Art Exhibition in the Republic of China, Taipei. The purpose of the exhibition is to promote mutual understanding and friendship among the younger generation of the world. It is a tremendous honor for Whitko High School students to be recognized for their artistic abilities on an international level, especially considering 47 countries were represented at the exhibition. I'd now like to recognize by name each of the eight Whitko students who participated in the competition: Renae Banks, Julianne Haines, Wendy Chalk, Amanda Crosser, Callista Duggins, Kylee Brown, Jill Wendel, and Shannon Sleighter. Two of these students--Julianne Haines and Shannon Sleighter--were recognized by the World School Children's Art Exhibition for their outstanding artistic skill and talent and were awarded selected medals for their work. I send them my sincere congratulations. I also commend Whitko High School's art teacher Walter C. Malicki for his dedication and enthusiasm. Under his guidance, Whitko High School students have received 32 national and 97 international awards. These honors are due, in large part, to Mr. Malicki's leadership and the encouragement he gives each of his students. Once again, I extend my congratulations to the Whitko High School art students for their achievements in the 35th World School Children's Art Exhibition.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 853 may be the most self-evident resolution this body has considered in the 108th Congress. It is a bill to recognize the good service of the Boy Scouts of America. One would think we might as well consider a resolution recognizing the good service of motherhood and apple pie. But, Mr. Speaker, as we near the end of 2004 we have to come to understand that some Americans do not believe in the good works of the Boy Scouts of America. In fact, there are those who believe that the very existence of the Boy Scouts of America does not deserve recognition by the Federal Government. Although such a disposition may appear to be shocking at first, it is the mind-bending logical conclusion of an effort that seeks to isolate groups like the Boy Scouts. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, released the details of a legal settlement with the U.S. Department of Defense, DoD, this Tuesday, November 16, 2004. In this ongoing case, the ACLU has sued DOD and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, for sponsoring the Boy Scouts of America, thus, in the opinion of the ACLU, breaching the Constitution's separation of church and state. While the settlement reached by the ACLU with DOC seems benign, the attack upon our country's cultural institutions cannot be ignored. While purporting to defend Liberty, the ACLU and its allies promote an agenda that discriminates against religion and blocks the People from helping those who help others. You see, the Boy Scouts of America have the word ``God'' in their oath. While the Scout Oath also contains words like honor, moral, and country, the ACLU is concerned that religion is intruding upon the rights of the American people because Department of Defense employees have long worked with the Boy Scouts of America for community events. Mr. Speaker, I serve as the chairman of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform. Through my subcommittee, the ranking member, Elijah Cummings, and I have held eight hearings in the last 2 years on the provision of services by faith-based and community groups. In a field hearing we held on January 23, 2004, in Los Angeles, CA, the subcommittee heard from a witness who explained the simple yet weighty impact the use of government property would be for groups like his. Keith Phillips is the founder and president of World Impact, a nonprofit, faith-based organization ``designed to transform the lives of the urban poor.'' For groups like Mr. Phillips', the use of buses for weekend trips can be the difference in helping the children of the urban poor. He suggested at our hearing that the Federal Government allow groups like his to use their buses on the weekend. He explained that government can help World Impact help other Americans, ``Give us facilities where we can run clinics, thrift stores, recreational activities. Help us provide better transportation for the urban poor to camps, conferences and schools by giving us the use of government vehicles like buses on weekends.'' Mr. Speaker, our Department of Defense, not to speak of other federal departments, operate hundreds, probably thousands of buses. The first legal step has been taken to prevent these buses from ever being used by the Boy Scouts or by groups like World Impact. I hope this House takes leaps toward helping groups like these. I hope this House takes steps to help DOD and other branches of the Federal Government help these people help their fellow Americans. I hope we stand up for the religious liberty of Americans against those who would discriminate against religiously oriented Americans. I rise with my colleagues of the House in recognizing the good service of the Boy Scouts of America. Though H. Res. 853 would appear to be a simple resolution for this body to consider, I believe we are forced to defend the Boy Scouts and all other service organizations that would be falsely challenged in their service of other Americans. Let us unanimously pass H. Res. 853, and honor the ideals of the Scout Oath: On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) for his leadership and advocacy on behalf of veterans. No one has worked harder for veterans than he has. I appreciate his commitment not only on this bill but across the board in working to improve veterans health care and the benefits for veterans in the United States. I also want to specifically thank John Bradley on the gentleman from New Jersey's committee staff for his willingness to work with my staff on matters of concern to veterans in my district. The bill before us contains many important provisions related to veterans health care and facilities management. Particularly, section 414 is of specific interest to veterans in my district, and I appreciate the inclusion of this language to force additional reporting to Congress as far as informing us of changes or closure of veterans hospitals. In May of this year, Secretary Principi issued his decision on the CARES Commission recommendations for veterans health care. Among the slated changes was a mission change for the Fort Wayne veterans hospital located in my district. The decision called for closure of the hospital's inpatient beds and a transfer of those patients to either a community hospital in the local area or the Indianapolis veterans hospital. Fort Wayne is the largest veterans hospital and city in the United States affected by this bill. It is the second largest city in Indiana. The northern Indiana hospital covers an area larger than 2 million people who live 2 to 4 hours from Indianapolis and have no desire to go to Indianapolis, especially for continuing outpatient care; or for some inpatient care; or far away from their doctors where they have to get motels, where their spouses have to come, far away from their families, where their children will not visit them. They have no interest in this process. Fort Wayne is one of the top military recruiting areas in the United States. In addition, our Guard and Reserve units are regularly serving on the front lines. Currently, I have a Reserve unit of over 200 men and women in Afghanistan for a year. I just had an Air Guard unit return to Fort Wayne from the Middle East. I have another large Reserve unit that just returned from a year down in Guantanamo. This spring, I had an Army Guard unit of 700 return from 14 months in Iraq. None of this was considered in the CARES Commission report. In Congress, we are asked to repeatedly support, which I support as well, actions in Afghanistan, actions in Iraq and other parts of the world. But we cannot ask men and women in our Guard and Reserve to repeatedly be called up and then not have health care in the districts that they live in. The CARES Commission assumed retirement communities, and where the military bases were, were where the future demand was going to be. But if we are going to use the Guard and Reserve in the way we are using them, we are going to provide them health care because if they are on the frontline in combat, they are going to be treated like other military personnel. And if they get called up a second time and third time around, the health care system is going to be revolutionized in the United States, and these people do not retire in Florida. They do not live there. They do not go where the bases are. They live in the communities they work in, in the Guard and the Reserve. And we have to factor this in as we look at the health care system. Obviously, population shifts have occurred. Obviously, modernization is needed in our veterans hospitals. Obviously, outpatient services are the growing category in all kinds of health care, and we do not need more input. But what I fear when we look at the obvious trends that are occurring is, this is a back-door way to actually reduce benefits for many veterans and people in the Guard and Reserve in areas where they have been loyal patriotic Americans risking and dying, as many have in my district already in these wars, and they do not deserve to have their health care diminished dramatically.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, sixty years ago, the forces of the Third Reich pushed forward into the mountainous and heavily forested Ardennes region of Luxembourg and Belgium. Since the landing of Allied forces in Normandy six months before, the war had not gone well for Germany. This offensive represented the last desperate gasp of Germany to save itself from total defeat. The Nazi goal was to reach the North Sea, hamstring Allied armies, and force a negotiated peace on the western front. The offensive failed. Although the Nazis surprised the Allied forces, American troops gave no ground without a fight. Perhaps the most famous story demonstrating American tenacity is the story of General Anthony McAuliffe. Although surrounded by German forces demanding his surrender. General McAuliffe replied with a single word: Nuts. Despite continued German attacks, McAuliffe's determination and stubbornness had been demonstrated and the American lines were not broken. American and Allied bravery during the Battle of the Bulge cannot be doubted. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers fought during this battle bravely to bring peace and freedom to Europe. Over half a million Allied soldiers, the bulk of whom were American, took part in the battle. During the month and a half long battle 81,000 Americans were injured and 19,000 killed. The Battle of the Bulge sealed the fate of Germany on the western front. Notwithstanding our ultimate success, we faced many obstacles, including weather and supply problems, which could have slowed our victory. December 1944 was one of the most inclement winters on record. Snow and rain had slowed the Allied advance and hampered our ability to wage war. Fearing what would happen if the foul weather continued, General George Patton of the American Third Army, distributed the following prayer to his troops during the Battle of the Bulge: Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Although some object to praying to God for victory in battle, General Patton pointed out that American troops were fighting for freedom from evil and tyranny. They were not fighting only for themselves, but also for millions of people they had never met. Their cause was right and just. As the United States is currently engaged in a right and just battle, I cannot help but draw parallels between our brave soldiers then and now. Then, as now, the enemy was a tenacious foe determined to break our will and break our spirit. Then, as now, our troops did not give an inch without a fight. And then, as now our troops were battling to bring peace and freedom to a region that has seen so much evil, destruction, and heartache. Then, as now, our case was right and just. On the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, I will join Speaker Hastert and other Members in Luxembourg at ceremonies honoring all of our soldiers who fought so bravely many years ago. Although many of them are no longer with us, the memory of their accomplishment and the gratitude of millions of people will never be forgotten.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Cox), the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) who has been helpful, and a number of other members. Also, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, as well as the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform, those four committees came together to make this amendment possible. We see cooperation in the narcotics area of the subcommittee I chair. We have had increasing drug busts, we have had some progress, but it is not fast enough. If we are not careful here, instead of collecting intelligence, all we are going to be doing is having people going to meetings and talking to each other. We have to have a better ability of our computers to talk, a more organized structure, because we cannot afford to make errors. We understand, and this House is recognizing, the fact that these agencies that have been put together under Homeland Security have multiple missions. There are narcotics missions, there are search and rescue under the Coast Guard, there are fisheries missions, there are immigration missions within these Departments, and there are going to be some stovepipes; but they all have valuable information, and we need to get this better coordinated so we can be more effective and safer as a Nation. I hope everyone will support this amendment. I do not see any reason why anybody would not. I appreciate the support on the minority side as well as the majority side. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is pretty simple. It attempts to address this. When the Commission talks about stovepiping, these are the stoves. This is not even what is called the intelligence community. It does not include most of the CIA, the NSA. These are mostly the narcotics and border intelligence agencies. As we look at this, for example, in El Paso alone, we have a Custom and Border Protection Field Intelligence Center, we have a DEA El Paso Intelligence Center, an OCDETF Center with a Southwest border initiative there also. This is just El Paso. We have an Office of National Drug Control HIDTA, and we have a JTF- 6, and the DHS is proposing a new Border Interdiction Support Center. So this means in El Paso we have a BORFIC, an EPIC, an OCDETF, a SWBI, a HIDTA, a JTF and BISC that we need to have if we are going to do a better job of coordinating the intelligence on our southwest border and other places. If we are going to have DHS actually coordinate these things, we need this amendment. This amendment says the Secretary should make sure everyone has access to relevant law enforcement. They need to consolidate databases, they need to improve information sharing. It requires the report to Congress containing an overview of all of the agencies' databases and other capabilities. It directs the Secretary to submit a plan to Congress, to improve information and intelligence sharing within the Department, and it directs the Secretary to ensure that information and intelligence sharing is subject to appropriate limitations and legal safeguards. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his support. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the distinguished chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. First, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Davis) for his leadership on this bill and the leadership in working with us on a number of amendments. I want to go on record before I get into my particular area on two things. The 9/11 Commission report is a great book, it is a great starter, but it is not the Bible, and it is not perfect, and we need to forward. On this question of defense intelligence, they completely missed. If we compromise and put the people that vote in my district at risk because we make a mistake in intelligence, they may die because of our error and we have to address that. Secondly, these immigration reforms and security changes are absolutely essential, because everything we are spending on homeland security breaks down if we do not know that the person actually is the person they say they are. We are dependent then on them telling us the truth about their background. We need secure IDs and we are trying to address that. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, I would like to highlight two provisions of the bill that address the dangers drug trafficking poses to homeland security. Many of us forget that many of the largest anti-narcotics agencies and over 20,000 people in the United States die a year from the narco- terrorism on the streets. Furthermore, this money often funds these terrorist groups, and legacy Customs, legacy Border Patrol, legacy Coast Guard are all in the Department of Homeland Security. We need two things to make sure it stays part of it. First, that it strengthens and clarifies the role of the counternarcotics officer who is in the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate these efforts; and the second requires that drug enforcement activities be one of the benchmarks for relevant employee performance appraisals at DHS. It was appalling that inside the Department of Homeland Security, narcotics enforcement had been neglected and not even mentioned in the whole system, yet these agencies absolutely are the first line of defense. Now, specifically, what this does is change the personnel incentives and also takes this counternarcotics officer and makes him a director of counternarcotics enforcement subject to Senate confirmation reporting directly to the Secretary assigned specific responsibilities to the new director because, up until now, he has been detailed and had to battle for each employee and authorize permanent staff to be assigned to him as well as detailees from the relevant agencies. Mr. Chairman, we cannot afford to take our eye off the daily battle on our streets as we try to deal with the new world challenges, particularly when our drug habit is financing many of these terrorists efforts around the world.

Mr SOUDER

Mr SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, during debate on the Marriage Protection Amendment, the Minority Leader referenced the ``Party of Lincoln'' and it support for the freedom of all people, including slaves. She made reference to Lincoln and his party in an effort to criticize the Republican Party for its stand in support of marriage as solely between one man and one woman. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to insert an article into the Record that documents the Republican Party's historical support--even at its beginning--for the institution of marriage. The article by Robert P. George and William L. Saunders entitled, ``Republicans and the Relics of Barbarism: Moral Conviction made the GOP the GOP,'' discusses the moral debates that defined the Republican Party in the 1800s. The issues of polygamy and slavery were at the center of those debates. Slaveholders clamored for their ``right'' to own another human being, thereby destroying the worth of that human being, while polygamists claimed it to be their ``religious freedom'' to engage in plural marriage, at the expense of their children and society. When the Supreme Court usurped congressional power in the Dred Scott decision, claiming that the Constitution contained a ``right'' to own a slave, the Republican Party, led by President Lincoln, steadfastly challenged the decision. It is known that President Lincoln defeated at least one candidate who favored a pro-choice position in regard to the issue of slavery. In addition, the Republicans made Utah statehood contingent upon their inclusion of a prohibition of polygamy in their State constitution. These ``archaic'' moral disputes are unchanged in modern debates. Today, proponents of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and cloning assert their ``right'' to create and destroy another human being at will, and thereby destroy the worth of that human being. In addition, the pervasive philosophy of moral and sexual liberation seeks to devalue the traditional, foundational role of marriage, at the expense of children and society. The defense of traditional marriage and the protection of all life as equal and of intrinsic worth in the eyes of our Creator, are inherent, core beliefs of the Republican Party. We would do well to recall this truth, and to bring it to bear on our modern topics of discussion. We must defend the sanctity of life by opposing abortion and embryo- destructive research, and we must defend marriage as the permanent union between one man and one women, in order to maintain the moral and structural stability of our Nation. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in support of marriage today in the tradition of the Party of Lincoln--the Republican Party. I urge my colleagues of both parties to do the same and vote in support of H.J. Res. 106, the Marriage Protection Amendment. [From National Review on Line, Aug. 30, 2004] Republicans and the Relics of Barbarism: Moral Conviction Made the GOP the GOP (By Robert P. George and William L. Saunders) In the middle of the 19th century, a new political party emerged dedicated to two great moral struggles. The Republican party pledged to fight the ``twin relics of barbarism'': slavery and polygamy. By then, slavery was deeply entrenched in the culture of the American south. What some had regarded as ``necessary evil'' that would gradually die out had been given a new lease on life by technological developments, and by the emergence of profitable overseas markets for cotton. An entire social and economic system was built on slavery. No longer was it reasonable to hope that the ``peculiar institution,'' and with it the moral controversy convulsing the nation, would quietly fade away. Powerful interests had a stake not only in maintaining the slave system, but in extending it into the western territories of the United States. So the Republicans faced a daunting challenge. Pro-slavery Democrats condemned them as ``fanatics'' and ``zealots'' who sought to impose their religious scruples and moral values on others. Slaveholders demanded that they ``mind their own business'' and stay out of the ``domestic'' and ``private'' affairs of others. Defenders of a ``right'' to own slaves pointedly invited northern abolitionists to redirect their moral outrage towards the ``wage slave'' system in the north. ``If you are against slavery,'' they in effect said, ``then don't own a slave.'' By the mid-1850s, polygamy, which had originally been the largely secret practice of the Mormon elite, had come out of the closet. Polygamists claimed that attacks on ``plural marriage'' were violations of their right to religious freedom. Later, some would bring lawsuits asking judges to invalidate laws against polygamy as unconstitutional. One of these cases would make it all the way to the Supreme Court. Apologists for polygamy denied that plural marriage was harmful to children, and challenged supporters of the ban on polygamy to prove that the existence of polygamous families in American society harmed their own monogamous marriages. They insisted that they merely wanted the right to be married in their own way and left alone. But the Republicans stood their ground, refusing to be intimidated by the invective being hurled against them. They knew that polygamy and slavery were morally wrong and socially corrosive. And they were prepared to act on their moral convictions. For the Republicans, the idea that human beings could be reduced to the status of mere ``objects'' to be bought and sold and exploited for the benefit of others was a profound violation of the intrinsic dignity of creatures made in the image and likeness of God. Similarly, the idea that marriage could be redefined to accommodate a man's desire for multiple sexual partners was, as they saw it, deeply contrary to the meaning of marriage as joining a man and a woman in a permanent and exclusive bond. In the great moral struggles of the 19th century, the Republicans sought advantage in every morally legitimate and available way. When appropriate, they would accept strategic compromises on the road to victory; but they would not compromise away their principles. When in the Dred Scott decision the Supreme Court of the United States announced its discovery of what amounted to a constitutional right of slaveholding, Lincoln and other leading Republicans refused to treat the case as a binding precedent. They would not bow to judicial usurpation. When Utah sought admission as a state, the Republican-controlled Congress made statehood conditional upon incorporation of a prohibition of polygamy into the state constitution. As Republicans gather in New York this week, they would do well to remember their moral heritage. The twin relics of barbarism have returned in distinctively modern garb. Abortion and embryo-destructive research are premised on the proposition that some human beings--those in the embryonic and fetal stages of development--may legitimately be reduced to objects that can be created and destroyed for the benefit of others. At the same time, the ideology of sexual liberationism threatens to undercut the traditional understanding of marriage as the permanent and exclusive union of one and one woman. A familiar mantra of ``pro-choice'' politicians is that abortion should be ``safe, legal, and rare.'' Now, however, they seek to validate and fund a massive industry that would create human beings for the precise purpose of destroying them during the embryonic stage of development in biomedical research. What happened with slavery is now happening with embryo-killing: The people who use to define it as a ``necessary evil'' to be resisted or lessened by means other than legal prohibition now promote it as a social good-- something that law and government should not only tolerate but embrace and even promote. At the same time, the sexual-liberationist movement seeks to undermine traditional understandings of the meaning and significance of human sexuality. The attempt to abolish the legal concept of marriage as the one-flesh union of a man and a woman is part of a larger effort to ``liberate'' people from what the cultural-political Left regards as outmoded and repressive ideas about the centrality of procreation and the moral requirement of fidelity in human sexual relationships. Even some leading ``conservative'' advocates of ``same-sex marriage'' have announced their moral acceptance of promiscuity; one has gone so far as to proclaim the ``spiritual value'' of ``anonymous sex.'' Increasingly, critics of traditional morality are willing explicitly to invoke the authority of ancient pagan civilizations in which practices (including abortion, infanticide, and homosexual conduct) condemned by the Judeo-Christian ethic sometimes flourished. Critics of the Republican stand in defense of marriage and the sanctity of human life--including some within the party-- echo the arguments of 19th-century apologists for the relics of barbarism. They accuse pro-life and pro-family Republicans of being ``religious fanatics'' who disrespect people's liberty and seek to ``impose their values'' on others. ``If you are against abortion,'' they say, ``then don't have an abortion.'' They maintain--often disingenuously--that legal recognition of the ``marriages'' of same-sex partners will not harm or weaken traditional marriages. These arguments fare no better as defenses of human-embryo killing and the redefinition of marriage than they did of slavery and polygamy. Justice requires that all human beings irrespective of race or color, but also irrespective of age, or size, or stage of development, be afforded the protection of the laws. The common good requires that the laws reflect and promote a sound understanding of marriage as uniting one man and one woman in a bond founded upon the bodily communion made possible by their reproductive complementarity. An influential minority in the Republican Party proposes abandoning, or at least soft-pedaling, the Party's commitments to the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage and the family. They say that social issues are ``too divisive.'' They suppose that the easy road to Republican electoral success is as the party of low taxes and low morals. They counsel capitulation to judges who usurp the constitutional authority of the American people and their elected representatives. Let Republicans be mindful of their heritage. It was moral conviction--and the courage to act on moral conviction--that gave birth to the Republican party and made it grand. Now it is old, but need not be any less grand. By summoning the moral courage that enabled their Party to stand proudly against the twin relics of barbarism in the 19th century, Republicans can bring honor upon themselves in the great moral struggles of our own day.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. One would think that the District of Columbia has a good record rather than eight times the national average, leading the Nation 14 of the past 15 years in the murder rate. As a former mayor said, ``Other than the killings, their crime rate is not too bad.'' ``Other than the killings'' is a relevant thing here. We are trying to make sure honest citizens can protect themselves, not just the criminals. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), a member of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee, and a former judge.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the State of Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross), the lead Democratic cosponsor of this bill. We have 44 Democratic cosponsors, and I very much appreciate his leadership and help on this issue.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, facts are stubborn things, and the fact is that today D.C.'s murder rate is still 8 times higher than the national average. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) for bringing up a very good rule today. I rise in support of this rule, and would like to alert all of my colleagues, the vote for a rule is a vote for allowing debate on restoring the second amendment rights to the District of Columbia residents. Members have heard much of the debate today that citizens are prevented from owning a handgun at all. My bill says even if citizens have a gun, let me first state this, even if you have a gun, you store a rifle or shotgun, you are prohibited from using them to defend your own life, family, and home. District law threatens honest people with imprisonment if they unlock, assemble, or load their guns even when under attack. For this reason, I am bringing before the House a bill that this rule would make in order that would restore the second amendment rights of D.C. citizens. I think it is important to note that my bill would not repeal any provision of D.C. law that bans gun possession by criminals or that punishes violent crime. The rule also makes two important changes to my bill which would clarify the original intent. There has been a misrepresentation in ``Dear Colleagues'' to this House that said we would allow concealed and open carrying of any firearm, loaded or unloaded, outside the owner's property. It did not. It said three times in the bill, property, home, business or other land, but this clarifies it. It also strengthens D.C. code by providing a more complete set of exemptions based on Maryland law to allow citizens to transport unloaded, cased firearms to and from lawful activities, such as hunting, target shooting, and firearm safety training. I want to address a number of the things that have come up during debate. One is if someone has a gun in their home, could someone go in and rob? Of course they could. They can now. It is just the person defending their home cannot defend their home, but it is not loaded, it has to be encased and cannot be used. But if someone wants to steal the guns, they can do that now. What happens if they go on the street with an illegal gun? Guess what; they are doing that now. That penalty stays in effect. If somebody steals the gun or goes off their property with the gun, it is already against the law. It will still be against the law, and all Members are arguing is the ineffectiveness of the law. For years in the United States we have heard this rumor that if we ban guns, only the criminals would have guns. In D.C. that seems to have come true, because now what we are arguing is that people who follow the law are somehow going to turn into criminals. The people who are criminals are already making Washington, D.C. the murder capital of the United States 14 of the last 15 years. How can it get worse? What we are doing is letting the people who are in the homes, as people have written in and stated, that when they told, even though the gun was illegal, when they said they had a gun inside, people left the attacking of their homes. This should increase property values in Washington, D.C. It should make people safer, and I think it is the right thing to do. Another subject that came up was the so-called AK-47s and Uzis. They are constantly mentioned, but they are not legal to import now. Even though the assault weapon ban has expired, those and other foreign-made guns were prohibited under the Federal Firearm Importation Act in 1989, and they will still remain prohibited. We heard about so-called ``cop killer bullets.'' The fact is on the armor piercing ammunition bill, there was a bill passed in 1986 when the Democrats controlled this House. After several years of debate and discussion, Congress prohibited certain kinds of bullets that could be used in a handgun and which were capable of defeating the kinds of bullet-resistant vests that police officers wear for protection. Some wanted to ban all ammunition. That was defeated. It came up again. In 1997, a study conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that existing laws are working and no additional legislation regarding such laws is necessary. The study also found that no law enforcement officer had ever been killed or even injured because of these so-called bullets penetrating a bullet-resistant vest. It urged Congress to avoid any experimentation with police officer lives that could conceivably lead to numerous additional officer fatalities. The problem here is all we are doing is making D.C. in conformance with the rest of the United States, which is a constitutional right to bear arms, and this rule would go forth and do that. I include for printing in the Congressional Record the cosponsors of this bill.