[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 138 (Wednesday, September 28, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1720
 
     CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF SURGEON GENERAL JOYCELYN ELDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Scott). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Crane] is recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to inform colleagues about the 
introduction of a bill that I submitted last Friday, H. Res. 545. H. 
Res. 545 was the result of a frustrating experience that a number of us 
had in communicating with the White House on our conviction that our 
Surgeon General should be removed from office. The fact of the matter 
is we wrote 2 separate letters to the President urging him to call for 
her resignation and he did not agree. So we have introduced this 
legislation with 25 cosponsors already that calls upon the President to 
please seek to remove her from the bully pulpit where she sets so 
horrifying an example to the Nation.
  There is a group called the Family Research Council. The Family 
Research Council has a member, Kay James, that responds to a number of 
the Elders' quotes that I would like to read.
  Joycelyn Elders says:
  ``We have drivers' ed for our kids. We've taught them what to do in 
the front seat of the car but not what to do in the back seat.''
  Kay James responds:
  ``Why assume they are going to be in the back seat? Assuming that 
kids are going to be sexually active is comparable to giving them a 
license. But choosing to be sexually active is more critical than the 
decision to drive a car. Why don't we teach them what not to do in the 
back seat? Elders is known for saying ``you can't be what you can't 
see.'' I agree with that, and unfortunately, she is not modeling 
anything that would give kids encouragement for abstinence.''
  Next quote from our Surgeon General:
  ``You've been preaching abstinence for a hundred years. I've still 
got a problem. I've still got thousands of teenagers having babies 
every year.''
  Kay James' response:
  ``The truth is that we have not been teaching abstinence to kids. 
Public schools have never implemented a comprehensive abstinence 
education curriculum in their family life programs. Title X funding is 
$170 million compared with Title XX, abstinence education funding, at 
approximately $1 million. No reputable study shows that contraceptive 
based programs have worked and many have shown otherwise. A Lou Harris 
poll shows that teens who have had a sex education course that 
discusses contraceptives have a 50-percent higher sexual activity rate 
than those who have not. Abstinence based programs are the only ones 
with a consistent track record of success, often dramatic success.''
  Again our Surgeon General:
  ``Look who's fighting the pro-life movement. A celibate, male-
dominated church, a male-dominated legislature, and a male-dominated 
medical profession.''
  Kay James' response:
  ``Wrong. Actually the 2 most prominent pro-life groups in the United 
States, National Right to Life, and the American Life League, are 
headed by women. Many minorities are pro-life. A 1989 Wirthlin Group 
National Survey shows that women are far more pro-life than men. In 
fact, the Black Americans for Life is one of the fastest growing pro-
life groups in the United States. Her ad hominem arguments don't really 
address the issues.''
  Again our Surgeon General. Elders calls her critics ``non-Christians 
with slave-master mentalities.''
  James responds:
  ``The slave imagery doesn't work on this one. Elders is trying to 
appeal to the days of slavery, equating the abortion struggle with a 
civil rights issue. Elders shouldn't denigrate the civil rights 
movement with her reference to what she calls ``reproductive freedom.'' 
There are many of us who are growing weary of social engineers 
hijacking the freedom train to accomplish their own agenda.''
  Again, Joycelyn Elders:
  ``I would hope that we would provide prostitutes Norplant so that 
they could use sex if they must to buy their drugs.''
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CRANE. Yes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. That is almost too much for me to digest. 
Would the gentleman read that again? This is our Surgeon General saying 
this.
  Mr. CRANE. Our Surgeon General, a direct quote. It was Talk Line on 
CNBC that they did on June 19, 1993. I will read it again:
  ``I would hope that we would provide prostitutes Norplant so that 
they could use sex if they must to buy their drugs.''
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the gentleman would yield, I wish everybody 
in America could hear your special order tonight, because the moral 
foundation of any administration is extremely important to the moral 
health of the country. It appears to me and to many of my colleagues, 
yourself included, that there really is not much of a moral foundation 
in this administration. They have brought in every kind of deviate they 
can possibly think of into every agency of Government, and now they are 
advocating these kinds of policies for the people of this country? It 
makes no sense.
  I would just submit when people start wondering why when the economy 
is not really bad that a President's popularity is going right straight 
down the tubes, it is because the people of this country understand 
that there is a moral problem that is being created, not solved, by the 
administration. This administration and the people that he is putting 
in these key positions is killing the moral fiber of America instead of 
helping make it better. I think it is a sad state of affairs when the 
chief executive of this country would even put somebody like this in a 
position of leadership.
  Mr. CRANE. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks.
  The fact of the matter is on some of the remarks that have been made 
by our Surgeon General, the administration has attempted to position 
itself in opposition, in theory, yet has taken no action. Yet Dr. 
Elders herself remarked in an interview, ``I saw the President recently 
and he congratulated me on what I've been doing.''
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield 
further, that is the old ham-and-egg game that is played many times in 
politics to make people think that the guy on the white horse in the 
White House is really a good guy when he has got somebody else doing 
the dirty work that he supports.
  If the President really thought that Joycelyn Elders was on the wrong 
track, it would be a matter of a snap of his fingers, he would replace 
her. The fact of the matter is, she is doing his bidding by pushing his 
social and moral agenda on this country. If he did not want her making 
these kinds obnoxious statements, if he did not want her talking about 
the youth of America like she does, he could get rid of her in a 
heartbeat. The fact of the matter is, he is in league with her and he 
does not want to do anything about it.

  Mr. CRANE. I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  I would be happen to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the comments that have been made are very 
appropriate and I think it should not and they do not just focus on 
Joycelyn Elders because, after all, she was put in place by the 
President of the United States who has given her, it seems, based on 
the quotes that were just read, an unqualified endorsement and 
ratification of the extreme position she has taken.
  Imagine, the very idea of teaching sex education to kindergartners in 
the public schools, to passing out condoms, to basically making 
comments that encourage promiscuous sexual activity, which apparently 
in her mind is OK, as long as you have a condom. We are witnessing a 
severe moral crisis in this country.
  It is on my mind because of what recently happened to a good friend 
of mine in Rocklin who was literally run down by a 19-year-old who was 
mad about something. He was looking around for 3 days driving around, 
according to newspapers. So this woman is walking, Rocklin is a great 
place where people walk and ride their bikes. She is out walking in the 
morning, 6:30 a.m., and he plows into the back of her going about 40 
miles an hour. We have had numerous surgeries, it has only been about 4 
weeks, I guess now, going on 5, so there are great injuries to be 
repaired. Thankfully it did not kill her.
  But I am struck by a comment that William Raspberry made recently in 
the Washington Post, it was 3 or 4 weeks ago now, but I saved it. The 
article referred to the consciencelessness of our young people, not all 
our young people, but some of our young people, who apparently in the 
most minor dispute would settle it with a gun or a knife. It is getting 
to the point where the morals of this country have gone precipitiously 
downhill, and I think it starts with moral leadership like we are 
getting from the top, President and Mrs. Clinton on down through Dr. 
Joycelyn Elders, the Surgeon General of the United States.
  These comments about legalizing drugs. Every time you legalize 
something like that, you increase the use. The most widely used legal 
drug in the country, I guess, is alcohol, and we have a persistent 
problem with alcoholism, not only amongst our young people but amongst 
adults. If you want to see what would happen with drugs, look what goes 
on with alcohol and just magnify it and multiply it because that is 
exactly what you would have if you legalized marijuana or cocaine or 
heroin. It would be a disaster.

                              {time}  1730

  Then to have these statements about religion, which are just 
outrageous that have been made. You know George Washington, our 
country's first President said this Republic was founded upon and could 
only be maintained upon two fundamental pillars or foundations. One was 
religion and the other morality.
  And when you have a republic that loses its religious base or that 
loses its morality you are going to lose your freedom. That was 
basically a paraphrase of the philosophy of the Founders.
  I would just submit, Mr. Speaker, that we are in the process of 
losing that freedom. We all lose our freedom when we are fearful to go 
out on the streets, or to go out in our car because we think somebody 
might harm us. And we are losing our freedom when we subject ourselves 
to being preyed upon by people without conscience.
  We had this debate I think on the crime bill, and to me I do not care 
how many police you hire or how many prisons you build, these are only 
interim solutions. They will never stem the flood unless we teach 
children values in the home, and that means children have to be raised 
with a mother and a father, ideally. And we as a country should seek to 
be cutting our taxes, and cutting our regulations so that more mothers 
and fathers can stay together and teach those values in the home.
  Instead of that you have a President Clinton come in who appoints 
somebody like Joycelyn Elders who preaches this gospel of free sex, and 
antireligion, and you have high taxes levied upon the people, while out 
of the other side of their mouths they are talking about reducing the 
deficit and getting in touch with the people. In reality they are 
deliberately hurting the people by putting a bigger burden of 
government on their shoulders, which leads to more family breakups 
which leads to more children being raised without that mother and 
father in the home, which leads ultimately to the present problems that 
we have. All of this 1960's generation, we have sown these seeds, and 
we are reaping the whirlwind right now with higher rates of crime, 
higher rates of illegitimacy, with the poor performance in the schools, 
the record amounts of abuse and spousal abuse. This is the bountiest 
harvest that the liberals have sown for us, and we ought to recognize 
what the problem is.
  It is not because of the Reagan revolution where we tried to cut back 
on the excesses of government. It is because the liberals forgot that 
values mattered and that if you do not have values in the home and 
morals being taught, you do not have anything. And Joycelyn Elders' 
comments are just a perfect representation of this relativist, this 
moral relativism that has gotten us in such trouble.
  Mr. CRANE. I could not agree with the gentleman more, and I agree 
with his comments.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the gentleman will yield further, we had 
down here one evening a list of all of the Presidential appointments, 
like Joycelyn Elders, and the backgrounds on a number of them was 
unbelievable as far as their views on immoral activities and things 
that would lead this country in the wrong direction. I do not know 
whether the gentleman brought that with him tonight. Does the gentleman 
happen to have that?
  Mr. CRANE. No; I do not have.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I hope that we will do another special order 
before we adjourn sine die, and I will try to get that list so that we 
can go through the backgrounds and the views of not just this but a 
number of Clinton appointees so that the people of this country can see 
that this is not an accident that this sort of thing is going on. I 
mean, there is a design they have put together and in position 
throughout all of this administration that is leading this country down 
what I consider, and I think most Americans consider to be an immoral 
road.
  Mr. CRANE. I agree with the gentleman's assessment. The fact of the 
matter is the Surgeon General commands a bully pulpit for accomplishing 
real, positive things, and yet the example we have in Dr. Elders is the 
exact contrary.
  Let me quickly read Kay James' response to that quote earlier, and I 
will repeat it one more time:

       I would hope that we would provide prostitutes Norplant so 
     they could use sex if they must to buy their drugs.

And Kay James' response:

       This is perhaps the most irresponsible statement that any 
     public health official has ever made. It shows a complete 
     lack of understanding of the drug crisis, the AIDS epidemic 
     and the growing menace of other sexually transmitted 
     diseases. Elders is identifying pregnancy as the ultimate 
     evil. What about the immoral and unhealthy behavior of 
     prostitution? What about the abuse of drugs? It seems that 
     Elders' only goal is to stop pregnancy, or more accurately, 
     births.

  Rather than give all of the responses from Kay James, I would 
heartily recommend to everyone again, because as I say, the Family 
Research Council here in Washington, DC, can provide all of the 
responses of Kay James, but let me give some more examples of Dr. 
Elders' quotes.

       We pay for pregnancy but we won't pay for contraception. 
     That doesn't make sense.

  That was in the Raleigh news and Observer back in March of last year.

       If Medicaid does not pay for abortions, does not pay for 
     family planning, but pays for prenatal care and delivery, 
     that's saying ``I'll pay for you to have another good, 
     healthy slave, but I won't pay for you to use your brain and 
     make choices for yourself.'' It's a way to keep people poor, 
     ignorant, and enslaved. If you're poor and ignorant you are a 
     slave.

American Medical News in January of last year.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from California [Mr. Dornan].
  Mr. DORNAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. In racing over here 
from my Rayburn office, when I saw your wonderful countenance appear on 
the tube, I did not hear some of the opening remarks, so let me just, 
because they are all worth repeating, let me just hit and miss some 
things.

  Did the gentleman get into the Record that sad story of Kevin Elders, 
the Surgeon General's son, that he has been sentenced for 10 years on 
cocaine?
  Mr. CRANE. No, no, I did not touch about that.
  Mr. DORNAN. What is interesting about this is the Surgeon General 
knew that he had been arrested and was procuring, as any good mother 
would, good, solid legal defense, working this through, during that 
period when the world did not know about the arrest, but Kevin knew, 
and the mother, the Surgeon General knew, she came out with her first 
suggestion about legalizing drugs, hardly a statement devoid of a 
vested interest. And that went on until the court case began that ended 
up with guilty for Kevin Elders.
  This morning on my friend--not--Phil Donahue's show, there was 
America's prime radical lawyer, a man of great candor, William Kunsler. 
He said that this was a political case, that the judicial system was 
punishing Joycelyn Elders for her candor and openness and sending her 
son to jail for 10 years. That type of Oliver Stonehead extreme 
conspiracy fantasizing tears up America youth just as badly as it does 
for the chief health officer of the United States to say:

       You young people should have legalized drugs. You young 
     people should get condoms down to 9 years of age.

And then quoting her, she says:

       And let me tell you about an 8-year-old in Arkansas that 
     was pregnant with twins.

By the way, I have never doubted her word or her frankness except that 
story. I want to see an 8-year-old pregnant with twins. And I would 
like to know what happened to that pregnancy, and if these 9-years-olds 
should get condoms, and in the very adjacent sentence start discussing 
an 8-year-old, then we are fair in saying she wants 8-years-olds to 
have condoms. Among my nine grandchildren I have two 8-year-olds, and 
when I look at them, look at their faces, they both happen to be girls, 
I say, ``Is this woman bereft of her senses?''
  Here is another thing I want to discuss. Did any of my three 
colleagues discuss that the press went up to her after one of her more 
outrageous statements, and I am going to put them all in the Record 
either during your special order or I have another one that follows the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], so we have time here to get this 
on the record, that Clinton was about to leave for Normandy for all of 
those photo ops, pushing veterans aside to see if he could get his poll 
numbers up, which did not happen, they went down, and while he was out 
of the country they went up to Joycelyn Elders and they said to her:

       What about these last statements here, does the President 
     know you're saying these things? Is he approving of all of 
     this?

I have no reason to believe that Joycelyn Elders was not telling the 
truth when she said the following, remember, talking about legalizing 
drugs was not, not telling the truth, that was a hidden agenda because 
her son was arrested for cocaine, not only usage but selling.

                              {time}  1740

  And so that was deceitful and against openness, but nothing to do 
with, you know, not creating a story out of fiction. She said to the 
press, ``The President, came up to me the other day and said, 
`Joycelyn,''' and they are friends all the way back to Arkansas where 
she was chief health officer, and I do not know whether they have a 
military title assigned to it, ``he said, `Joycelyn, I love it.''' I 
have seen this in print. Both of my sons saw it visually. She said, 
``Clinton said to me, `I love what you are doing, Joycelyn, Keep it up. 
I am behind you.'''
  Within days he had fired the drug czarina, the director of national 
drug policy, Kristine Gebbie, excuse me, the director of the AIDS 
program, he had fired Kristine Gebbie because the homosexual activists 
wanted Kristine Gebbie fired for shooting off her mouth and making dumb 
statements and mainly for all the wrong reasons, and they got her 
fired.
  Less than 1 percent of this country is homosexual in or out of 
privacy, what the pejoratively call the closet, privacy is what it 
really is, and she gets fired by the activists of less than 1 percent 
of the country.
  But the entire Nation of observant Jews, observant Catholics, 
observant Protestants, people of faith and belief are saying this woman 
is hurting our children, and he says, ``I love what you are doing. Keep 
it up. I am behind you.'' She said ``You think I am not telling you the 
truth? Ask him when he comes back from Normandy.''
  Well, did the press ask him? No, or if they did, they did not report 
it. It appears that the real problem here is not the Surgeon General 
but the man and the co-President and the administration that appointed 
her and tolerates these outrageous statements hurtful to the youth of 
America.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Can I involve my self in this colloquy?
  Mr. DORNAN. I want you involved.
  Mr. CRANE. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. This is what I was talking about just a few 
minutes ago.
  If you look through the appointments made by the President and this 
administration, it is amazing the number of people that have the same 
kind of liberal social agenda and immoral agenda, I call it, as 
Joycelyn Elders, and it permeates the entire administration.
  The problem is the American people are not aware of all of these 
appointments. Joycelyn Elders stands out like a sore thumb because she 
makes such outrageous statements on a regular basis.
  She is not the only one. There must be 20 or 30 of these people in 
very key positions who are advocating, at Personnel Management, OPM, 
and they have got a person over there right now, and I cannot think of 
the gentleman's name, that is advocating sensitivity training in all 
Government agencies for people to deal with homosexuals.
  Mr. DORNAN. Sensitivity training means homosexuality must be raised 
to the level of family, of normal family, and Joycelyn Elders says, 
which is a dangerous lie, not a lie, a dangerous, stupid misstatement 
to the American people, that homosexual conduct is not only normal, it 
is healthy, she says, healthy.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. In Indianapolis in some of the government 
agencies over there, they are now mandating, and they have put up big 
bulletin boards for the homosexual community so they can set up 
meetings with one another. This is sanctioned by this Office of 
Personnel Management, and it makes no sense. I mean, they are actually 
advocating that with Government tax dollars, because that agency is in 
favor of it. Now, that is the problem. It is permeating this entire 
administration.
  Mr. DORNAN. Absolutely. This must be like 1776; another patriot has 
arrived on the floor from the great State of Missouri.
  Mr. CRANE. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Hancock].
  Mr. HANCOCK. You know, you mentioned Joycelyn Elders holds gay sex 
healthy; it is broader than that. She says it is wonderful.
  Mr. DORNAN. That is right, I forgot.
  Mr. HANCOCK. She says it is wonderful and healthy. She says that it 
is wonderful and a normal and healthy part of our being. You know, she 
called the Boy Scout ban on homosexual scouts and Scout leaders unfair. 
She said school-based health clinics should address the needs of 
homosexuals as well as heterosexual students. Well, nobody is going to 
argue with that except the advocacy of it is where we draw the line.
  I mean, certainly the people or schools, the students should be 
educated on sex hygiene and this type of thing, but not advocating it 
as she is advocating it, and there is a lot more to it than just saying 
that it is, and when they say healthy, I agree with the gentleman from 
California, this is one of the most dangerous activities that we can 
engage in, the homosexuals.

  Mr. DORNAN. In some urban areas, it surpasses gunshot deaths for 
young males, AIDS infection.
  Mr. HANCOCK. And they are not teaching the results of this type of 
activity. All they are teaching is how to perform it, how to get 
involved in it, and how to protect yourself, and there is only one 
protection, and that is absolute, and that is abstinence. I mean, it is 
just that simple.
  So I fully support the fact that this individual should not be the 
Surgeon General of the United States, and I just wonder what other 
countries are looking at, how they think about all of this.
  Mr. DORNAN. I do not know if other countries wear a Public Health 
Service uniform, but Dr. Koop, and I agreed with him on most things, I 
mean, he all by himself has saved hundreds of thousands of lives in 
America because he reduced the smoking rate from the high 30's down to 
the low 20's, and that is going to have a health effect. I disagree 
with him on some of the things. I fought against my good colleague, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman], to get his appointment through 
under Ronald Reagan in 1981, and he turned 180 degrees on some issues 
and ran up a white flag of surrender, but Koop was on a weekend show a 
week ago Saturday, on ``American Interests,'' no, on Adam Smith's 
economics show, and he was explaining the cost of unhealthy sex, 
although he caved in to the condom-distribution solution, and he went 
through the killer aspect of this.
  So I called the Centers for Disease Control down in Atlanta and said, 
``Give me the new statistics on AIDS deaths in this country,'' and if 
my staff, which they are supposed to do, is watching me on the House 
floor, they are going, ``Uh oh,'' because I asked them 4 days ago to 
get the June 30 cutoff. I do not have it. I am reaching for it, and it 
is not in my mind. So I will go with September 30, first, 217,000 dead 
Americans. Remember Legionnaires' disease, it broke out here again with 
one to two dead people; I think the total there never passed the 20 
mark. Two hundred seventeen thousand dead.
  Dr. Koop told me that figure in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987 was 
low by 10, probably 20 percent, he said. Let us take 10. Ten percent of 
217,000 means over 257,000 deaths, and 200,000 of those deaths are 
attributed to homosexual conduct and/or drug-using homosexuals. They do 
not know which way they got it.
  You know, we are approaching World War II death totals of 312,000, 
depending on your encyclopedia. In 4 or 5 years, more young males, not 
in combat, except sexual combat, will have lost their lives than above 
the sea, under the sea, in the jungles, the sand, and the forests of 
Europe, all over the world, 312,000 Americans, and this is called 
healthy by the Surgeon General to protect our health.
  Then, as I started to say, I do not know what other countries do, but 
Koop bragged about how he brought the uniform back, because it gave him 
a uniqueness, particularly with that Lincolnesque beard, and I do not 
know what ribbons he wore, but Joycelyn Elders has about three rows of 
ribbons. There was a rumor out she was wearing a Purple Heart. That was 
a little wild, and turned out that was not true. But most of those 
ribbons, if not all of them, are ribbons awarded to the Public Health 
Service. Servicemen listening know what a unit commendation is. You 
wear it when you are in the unit, but when you leave the unit, you do 
not take it with you. That is because you are in that unit that got a 
Presidential commendation.
  She wears all of these combat ribbons, and she is killing people, the 
wrong way, with the wrong advice, so I just think that we have got to 
look to who hired her and who protects her, not that she should resign 
in disgrace.
  And do we all know what the word is on the street, the conventional 
wisdom? It is that she has something on the man who appointed her, 
because she was head of the health departments in Arkansas when several 
cases came up against her relatives, and I do not want to speak poorly 
of the dead who have gone to heaven, particularly when they are part 
Irish, but there were some cases that came up. One of them he was in 
this 2-year short term as attorney general in his early thirties, 30 to 
32, and then he become Governor, 32 years of age, another case came up, 
and there are rumors in Arkansas that Joycelyn Elders played a key 
role, which means she is not fireable. She is protected by her gender, 
by hear ethnic heritage, and by these rumors.
  So I guess we are going to have to live with her 2 more years, so 
that is why I want to focus in on the person who appointed her.

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