[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 31, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1838-H1845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jenkins). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to visit with 
you and other Members of the House and talk this evening about not just 
a piece of legislation but something that is affecting the way that we 
live in this country, and what happens when a number of people who are 
quite unfortunately intolerant of basic values in America got the court 
systems to go along with them and to start silencing people who are 
trying to exercise free speech and trying to exercise their right under 
the First Amendment of freedom of religion. But unfortunately the First 
Amendment has been twisted against it.
  Let me share, Mr. Speaker, the story of a young man in Medford, New 
Jersey. His name is Zachariah Hood. Now he is 8 years old, but things 
began for him when he was in first grade. First grade, boy, that is a 
joyful time. I have got five kids. They are in college and high school 
now, but I recall the life and the energy and the vigor of a first 
grader. And especially when they get a chance to do something on their 
own in the class, to be in charge of the class, even for a few minutes.
  Well, Zachariah Hood was in first grade in Medford, New Jersey, and 
the class had a reading contest and whoever won the contest would get 
to read

[[Page H1839]]

a story to the class. Not only that, they could pick the story they 
wanted to read.
  Little Zachariah was happy and he won the contest. Zachariah got the 
right. He was going to read a story to his classmates and he proudly 
brought his own book to school to read a brief story. Now, Mr. Speaker, 
I want to share the story that he wanted to read, because, Mr. Speaker, 
he was told he could not do it. When the teacher saw the book that he 
brought in and the story that he wanted to read, the teacher told him, 
``Oh, no, the Constitution does not let you read this at public 
school.''
  The book was called The Beginner's Bible. It was not the King James, 
it was not the Revised Standard or any other edition. It was just a 
book for kids telling some Bible stories, and this is the story that he 
wanted to read and he was told was unconstitutional. Mr. Speaker, the 
story is about Jacob and Esau and here I quote from it. I quote it in 
its entirety:

       Jacob traveled far away to his uncle's house. He worked for 
     his uncle taking care of sheep. While he was there, Jacob got 
     married. He had 12 sons. Jacob's big family lived on his 
     uncle's land for many years. But Jacob wanted to go back 
     home.
       One day, Jacob packed up all of his animals and his family 
     and everything he had. They traveled all the way back to 
     where Esau lived. Now, Jacob was afraid that Esau might still 
     be angry at him, so he sent presents to Esau. He sent 
     servants who said, ``Please do not be angry anymore.'' But 
     Esau was not angry. He ran to Jacob. He hugged and kissed 
     him. He was happy to see his brother again.

  Mr. Speaker, that is the story. I have finished quoting it, the story 
about the reunion of Jacob and Esau. Esau, of course most of us know, 
had previously sold Jacob his birthright for a bowl of pottage. And 
Zachariah Hood just wanted to read a story to his classmates about 
Jacob and Esau and the reunion of two brothers. He thought that was a 
nice story, and I think it is too.
  But the school system said, ``Oh, the First Amendment will not let 
you do that.'' They told him, ``We have something called separation of 
church and State.'' I will comment about that in a minute, Mr. Speaker, 
about what that really means. But the school said, ``We have separation 
of church and State and you cannot read in public school this story out 
of your Beginner's Bible.''
  Zachariah's parents were not real happy. They sued the school. Now 
one would think over something like this the kid ought to win his case. 
He ought to be able to read a nice simple story about two brothers 
getting back together. But no, the United States District Court, basing 
it on rulings that our Supreme Court has been making over the last 36 
years, said ``Oh, the school is right. You cannot read that story at 
public school.'' The story that I just read they held was 
unconstitutional, that it violated the separation of church and State, 
and it was prohibited by the very First Amendment which was enacted by 
our Founding Fathers to protect us.
  What kind of malarkey is this, Mr. Speaker, when the First Amendment 
that is supposed to protect faith in America is being used as a weapon 
against it?
  Now, I have here, Mr. Speaker, a copy of the story that the 
Associated Press ran on this from the newspaper in New Jersey, the Star 
Ledger, which was printed January 29 of this year. I provided a copy to 
the Clerk, Mr. Speaker, and I submit it for inclusion in the 
Congressional Record:

Medford First-grader's Bible Story Stirs a Battle Over Religious Rights

                          (By Melanie Burney)

       The case of a New Jersey boy barred from reading a Bible 
     story to his first-grade class is bound for a federal appeals 
     court as the battle continues over religious expression in 
     public schools.
       The lawsuit centers on whether the Medford elementary 
     school teacher violated the 6-year-old boy's First Amendment 
     rights.
       U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H. Rodriquez in Camden 
     ruled last month that the teacher was justified and school 
     officials acted appropriately.
       But an attorney for the boy's family, backed by the 
     Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, filed an appeal Tuesday 
     with the 3rd U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Philadelphia 
     challenging the lower court ruling.
       While prayer in school has been barred for decades, court 
     rulings have allowed some religious expression in schools. 
     U.S. Department of Education guidelines also permit students 
     to express their religious beliefs in some circumstances 
     through homework, artwork and other assignments.
       ``This case isn't an attempt to argue that Bible-reading 
     and prayer should be returned to school or anything of that 
     sort,'' said attorney F. Michael Daily of Merchantville, who 
     filed the appeal. . . . This case is really one of trying to 
     obtain some equilibrium in religious rights of students.
       Some legal experts say the case could ultimately land 
     before the U.S. Supreme Court to define the boundaries for 
     religion in public schools.
       ``It's potentially precedent-setting,'' said Douglas 
     Laycock, a professor at the University of Texas Law School in 
     Austin. ``I think there's a need to clarify.''
       The controversy began in February 1996 when Zachariah Hood 
     chose a story about Jacob and Esau from The Beginner's Bible 
     to read aloud to the class. Students in the class were 
     rewarded for good reading performances by being allowed to 
     read a story of their choice. Zachariah initially selected 
     Dr. Seuss' ``The Cat in the Hat,'' but decided it was too 
     long.
       Teacher Grace Oliva instructed him to read the story to her 
     privately first, and decided it was inappropriate, said 
     attorney John Dyer, who represents the Medford Board of 
     Education.
       ``Should a child be able to espouse a belief at any time 
     that child wishes in a first-grade classroom?'' asked Dyer. 
     ``The answer that most people would say is no because the 
     teacher must retain control over the classroom.''
       ``The problem is hard because the teacher tells the kids 
     you can choose anything you want and then it turns out there 
     are some things you can't choose,'' Laycock said. ``Once you 
     give kids a choice, discrimination against religion is a real 
     problem.
       The boy's family filed suit in June 1996.
       ``I never expected it to become a lawsuit,'' the boy's 
     mother, Carol, said. ``We are not religious fanatics. We are 
     very normal. We are mainstream, religious people.''
       The Rutherford Institute--the conservative organization 
     representing Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit 
     against President Clinton--is paying the family's legal 
     bills.
       The institute is pressing this case as part of its strategy 
     to clarify the religious expression permitted in public 
     schools, said Kim Hazelwood, eastern regional coordinator.
       ``We're finding that there's a lot of confusion around the 
     country on what the boundaries are,'' Hazelwood said. ``This 
     case shows that there are still individual students whose 
     religious speech is being restricted.''
       Zachariah left the school district shortly after the 
     incident; the family moved to nearby Lumberton, for reasons 
     related to the lawsuit.
       The lawsuit, which names state and local school officials, 
     seeks unspecified compensatory damages from the school board. 
     It also calls for a new policy to ``protect students who 
     present religious views.''

  Mr. Speaker, I think it is really important that people be able to 
look at this and think upon it and ponder. What has the Supreme Court 
done? Think about something as simple as the Ten Commandments. The 
decisions the U.S. Supreme Court has made have not just been against 
prayer in public schools, but they said that the Ten Commandments 
cannot be posted on the walls of the public school.
  Here in the House Chamber we have, and I am facing it right now, we 
have the image of Moses where we can see it, and it reminds us of Moses 
as the great lawgiver because he brought the Ten Commandments down from 
Mount Sinai. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has a depiction of Moses 
and the Ten Commandments on the wall in the chambers, the official 
chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  We have right above your head, Mr. Speaker, ``In God We Trust,'' 
which we have on our coins and dollar bills and other places as a 
national motto. But the U.S. Supreme Court said, ``No, you cannot have 
the Ten Commandments either just posted on the wall of a public 
school.'' They did that in the case in 1980 of Stone v. Graham, and 
their reasoning they wrote in their opinion: Because if the Ten 
Commandments were there, students might read them, might revere them, 
and might obey them.
  Just think of what they would be asked to obey, the values that are 
fundamental to us, commandments such as, ``Thou shalt not kill.'' When 
we hear, Mr. Speaker, about the terrible thing that happened in 
Jonesboro, Arkansas just last week, would we not like to be free to 
teach our kids in public school that it is wrong to kill? I mean they 
do not get that message on television. Why, why are some intolerant 
people trying to separate us from our values by stripping out prayer, 
stripping out references to religion or the Ten Commandments, or 
stripping out the reunion of two brothers from our public schools, as 
happened to Zachariah Hood, a first grade student?

[[Page H1840]]

  Mr. Speaker, trying to address this and similar decisions, sad 
distortions of the First Amendment, is the very reason that over 150 
Members of this body have come together as cosponsors of the religious 
freedom amendment. It is a constitutional amendment, Mr. Speaker. We 
revere the U.S. Constitution. I hold it as a sacred document. But the 
U.S. Supreme Court has twisted it beyond recognition.

                              {time}  1900

  The first amendment, the very first part of it says Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the 
free exercise thereof. It does not say you have to strip away religious 
references in our society. It does not say you cannot have prayer. It 
does not say you cannot refer to the Ten Commandments. It just says we 
will not have an official religion. We will not have a government-
designated religion in the USA, but we are going to have religious 
freedom. But we are caught in a Catch 22, devised by the court. If you 
try to exercise freedom of religion on public property, you are told, 
no, we are saying that is the same as establishing a national church, 
and we are going to stop you.
  And you have this debate that goes on about taking away our heritage. 
I want to share with you, Mr. Speaker, the religious freedom amendment. 
The full text, it is pretty straightforward, we tried to track what the 
first amendment really said and really intended and followed that as 
our pattern, but at the same time reversed the distortions that the 
U.S. Supreme Court has made of it.
  The religious freedom amendment, House Joint Resolution 78, simply 
states, to secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to 
the dictates of conscience, neither the United States nor any State 
shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray 
and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on 
public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the 
United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer 
or other religious activity, proscribe school prayers, discriminate 
against religion or deny equal access to a benefit on account of 
religion.
  That is it, Mr. Speaker. That is the positive statement of our rights 
and the protection against government trying to create a national 
church or trying to compel people to pray or tell them how to pray or 
what to pray, but to secure our rights, which have been stripped away 
systematically by these series of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, 
rights that have not just affected me and my family, but Zachariah 
Hood, the first grade student of New Jersey, and his family and people 
all around the country.
  Mr. Speaker, it is really sad to see and hear about the things going 
on, like in Ohio, there is a lawsuit now in Ohio, Mr. Speaker, that is 
related to their State motto. We can say in God we trust as it does in 
the House Chamber as our motto. In fact, the Star-Spangled Banner 
states, in one of the verses, and this be our motto, in God is our 
trust. Ohio, as its State motto, makes a similar reference. But 
unfortunately it is being sued to take it away.
  The motto is simply, with God all things are possible. That is it. 
Pretty straightforward. Pretty simple. But the ACLU does not like that, 
the same people who are bringing the lawsuits against school prayer, 
against the Ten Commandments, against all sorts of simple, 
nonthreatening references, to strip away, to censor them; they are 
suing Ohio. They are suing West Virginia to stop prayers at football 
games. They are suing to take things off of city seals and logos. They 
will get around to our currency in God we trust at one time or another, 
I am sure, but, Mr. Speaker, the standard ought to be pretty 
straightforward and simple.
  You do not compel anybody to participate, just like when we have the 
pledge of allegiance at school, nobody is compelled to join in. The 
U.S. Supreme Court has given them that right, and I agree with that 
decision, but let us apply the same standard to school prayer to say 
nobody can be compelled to participate, but that does not give you the 
right to censor those that do want to participate. That is fair. It 
protects minority and majority.
  That is what the first amendment is supposed to do, to protect all of 
us. I think it is fascinating that some people think the first 
amendment is only meant to protect them, but no one else, and it is to 
protect their right to be intolerant and not my might to express my 
faith or the rights of children who want to start the day with a simple 
prayer, not because they are compelled by the school, the school should 
not compel them to do that. But if the students say we want to start 
the day with a prayer, why not? If someone does not want to join in, 
they do not have to join in, but why tread on the rights of those who 
want to start the day at school the same way we start the day here in 
the Congress of the United States, with a prayer; the same way that the 
Oklahoma legislature and probably every legislature in this country 
opens every day, with a prayer; the way that city councils begin their 
meetings, with a prayer; the way that Rotary Clubs will start their 
meetings, with a prayer, or Kiwanis clubs or Chambers of Commerce or 
Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or whoever it might be? It is common. It is 
ordinary. It is good. It is positive. Yet we have intolerant people 
saying, oh, it is horrible. It offends me to hear you pray.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the problem is with the person that chooses to 
take offense, not with the person that chooses to express hope. 
Unfortunately, our courts have sided with those who want to suppress 
simple expression of faith. The religious freedom amendment will be on 
the floor of this House in the next few weeks. It has been approved by 
the Subcommittee on the Constitution. It has been approved by the House 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  This is the first time that a school prayer amendment has been 
approved by a committee of Congress, even though the decision against 
voluntary prayer in public schools was rendered by the U.S. Supreme 
Court back in 1962, 36 years ago. We have not had a vote in this House 
on a proposal like that for 28 years. Even then it took some special 
maneuvering to get it around the committee process.
  I am appreciative of the Judiciary chairman, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hyde), who has helped to shepherd it through and get it 
to where now we are about to have an historic vote.
  Mr. Speaker, it is long overdue that we address the problem of court 
discrimination against religion. Mr. Speaker, I think that as we do 
this, we need to focus on the fact that we are doing this because the 
American people have never accepted what the Supreme Court did. I have 
a collection of 36 years of public opinion polls and consistently 
three-fourths or more of the American people say, yes, we support a 
constitutional amendment to make it possible to have prayers in public 
schools again. If you ask them to, if you go to another question, you 
say, well, what about songs around, dare I say it, around 
Christmastime, because some schools do not even want to call them 
Christmas pageants they have anymore. They are winter programs. And you 
will find places where you can go that they will say, you can sing 
Frosty the Snowman, you can sing Walking in a Winter Wonderland, you 
can sing Here Comes Santa Claus, but you better leave out Silent Night 
and O Come All Ye Faithful.
  The religious freedom amendment says that is an expression of 
religious heritage or tradition. That ought to be permitted, whether it 
is a Christian song or it is a Jewish song or that of another faith, 
let people understand that there is faith as a normal part of life. We 
may have some differences among us, some people may pray different 
ways. Let them hear each other pray different ways. Let them be aware 
that beyond the differences and even more important than the 
differences is a unity, a unity and a belief in God. The Declaration of 
Independence states that belief.

  The founding document of the United States of America says, we hold 
these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to 
secure these rights governments are instituted among men.
  Our Founding Fathers wrote the very reason for government is not to 
create rights or to establish rights, but to protect, to secure the 
rights which come

[[Page H1841]]

to us from our Creator, from God. Is that taught? It is in the 
Declaration of Independence. Yet some people are telling us that that 
is not a proper teaching these days.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As I am sitting here 
listening to your great explanation of the need for this amendment, it 
occurs to me that there is not a single thing in this amendment that 
was not thought to be commonplace, that was not thought to be absolute, 
that was not thought to be definite for the 175 years after the Bill of 
Rights became part of the Constitution.
  Certainly, when you look back at the Founding Fathers, the men, and 
they happened to be men at that time, we would have women if we had a 
constitutional convention today there, but those people who were in 
Philadelphia, as you look at their debates, as you look at their 
discussions, it is so clear that they understood, Mr. Istook, the 
difference in separation of church and State and removing God from 
country. In fact, in comment after comment that Washington and Franklin 
and others make, it is so clearly an interwoven part of what they 
thought was absolutely essential that we not eliminate God from 
country, that in the furthest reaches of their imagination, the 
interpretation of the documents they worked on that has happened in the 
last 5 years by the courts would not have been thought to be even 
remotely possible.
  When you look at Washington's comments that religion and morality are 
the key cornerstones for a democracy, when you look at John Adams' 
comments when he, I think he was the minister, the Ambassador to Great 
Britain, he saw the Constitution for the first time, and as he wrote 
back his observations about the Constitution, he said, surely this is a 
document for a godly people because it will serve no other. It was not 
the kind of document that could work in a society that did not have a 
basis and belief, and faith and belief in God. But they did not want to 
really determine what faith or what God that was.
  From the heritage that they were coming out of, where many of the 
colonies had had a State-supported church, it was clear what they 
wanted the first amendment to do. It was clear what that immediate 
addition to the Constitution was all about. Not to eliminate God from 
country, not to eliminate religion from society, but in fact to say, we 
are not going to have a State-sponsored church. We are not going to use 
tax money to support one religion over another. We are going to be sure 
that all religions can freely be expressed, can freely be established 
in this country.
  And then if you look at right away what happens, as the government is 
founded, you see that religion is part of that, that God is part of 
that. Washington, as he established the tradition when he wanted to put 
his hand on the Bible to be sworn in as the President of the United 
States, he wanted the document, the book that he based his faith on to 
be the basis for the beginning of that administration. And that has 
become obviously part of our tradition, that we swear not only before 
God as people become President of our country, but we swear with a 
binding commitment to what they have based their faith on as we use the 
Bible.
  As you have pointed out already, not only the first Congress, but 
every day of every Congress since then, as far as I know, and certainly 
every day of the Congress since I have been here, we start with 
ceremonies that would be a violation of high school graduation. We 
start every day with ceremonies that then we turn, by ignoring this 
problem, we turn to people all over America and say, we are certainly 
not going to start a day of the Congress without time to pause, time to 
meditate, time to ask the Chaplain or a guest Chaplain to come in and 
pray, but we are not really going to stand up and make it clear that 
you should be able to do that, too.
  I think that the Capitol, most Americans would sense that we were in 
a very public building, that we were definitely in a tax-supported and, 
most people would probably say, tax-supported in excess institution, as 
we are here in the Congress and in the Capitol. And we start each day 
with that prayer.
  As I think you also pointed out, the Speaker looks directly in front 
of him and sees Moses, the lawgiver. The Supreme Court sets under the 
carving of the lawgiver, of Moses, the giver of the Ten Commandments 
and decides we cannot put those same commandments on a schoolhouse wall 
if the school board wants to. How contradictory could you be? How can 
the court do that without asking that somebody come in and sandblast 
the lawgiver, that very reference to the Ten Commandments, sandblast 
that off their wall.

                              {time}  1915

  If they are going to say that some school can't hang that on the wall 
for fear that the students who walk by it every day might begin to 
emulate those commandments, might begin to think, well, you know, maybe 
stealing and killing and lying is wrong.
  Our society, our laws are based on those very premises. And, really, 
all the amendment that I was pleased to cosponsor with my colleague, 
along with many others in this Congress, all this does is get us back 
to where Americans from 1787 until the 1960s thought without question 
we could and should in our Nation be. This is just going back and 
clarifying something that nobody had a problem with for 175 years.
  But somehow, in our sophistication, somehow in our higher view of 
things, we figured out what the people that drafted these documents 
apparently did not understand. Because if they understood them, they 
were immediately and constantly and consistently in violation of them. 
And then in the 1960s and the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, we further and 
further move away from those principles that are so basic and were so 
easily understood for so long in America.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, there is something that the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Blunt) was making comment about; and I certainly 
appreciated his going from the beginning of this country, which was 
founded on Judeo-Christian principles, to the time that we are here 
tonight and talking about the good things that those of us who believe 
strongly in the right to practice our religion freely, which this 
Constitution guarantees us.
  But one thing that my colleague was saying that really rang up there 
with me is that it is so tragic in this Nation today where I believe 
the Justice Department reports that 100,000 young people bring guns to 
school every day. I want to repeat that. 100,000 students bring guns to 
school every day. Yet those same students, and please correct me if I 
am incorrect, those same students cannot bring a Bible to the school 
but yet they can carry guns.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Reclaiming my time, I would say to my colleague that, 
fortunately, few schools try to actually ban the Bible, although there 
have been cases of it. At this point, the courts have not gone so far 
to say the student cannot bring a Bible to school.
  But the test, of course, is not how many rights do we have left. The 
test is how many rights have already been taken away from us. Because 
if that student, with or without a Bible, says we want to have a prayer 
at graduation or a football game or school assembly or to start the day 
in class, they are told, oh, no, someone might not want to hear it.
  Mr. JONES. If the gentleman would further yield for just a moment, 
and I want him to correct me if I am wrong. Is it not true that in 
Texas, and I forgot the town, somewhere around Galveston I believe, a 
couple, 3 years ago, that a Federal judge actually told the principal 
of a school that if during the graduation that the person giving the 
prayer would use the name Jesus that if that was going to be done that 
the judge would order that U.S. marshals be stationed at the school and 
the person that used the word Jesus in a prayer would be removed? Am I 
correct or incorrect in that?
  Mr. ISTOOK. I wish I could tell my colleague that he is incorrect; 
but, unfortunately, he is correct. The high school, I believe, was Ball 
High School in Galveston, Texas.
  I read the transcript of the judge's remarks because of an appellate 
decision, which is still subject to the Supreme Court's changing. But 
at that

[[Page H1842]]

time, because of an appellate decision, he felt that he had to honor 
their request to let them have a prayer at graduation, but he started 
putting limitations on it saying, if anyone mentions Jesus, I will have 
the U.S. marshal there to arrest them.
  So he was telling them, you know, I am going to tell you how to pray. 
And, unfortunately, most of the court decisions, including the U.S. 
Supreme Court decision in 1992, said we should not have prayers at 
graduation. That was the Lever v. Weisman case, which came out of Rhode 
Island.
  So the gentleman is correct that they are saying we should not have 
prayers at graduation. They are suing West Virginia now over prayers at 
football games. There are other lawsuits going on. There are still some 
schools which, frankly, have students practicing civil disobedience, 
that they are having prayers during school instructional hours, 
basically because the ACLU has not gotten around to suing them yet.
  I will make some more comments on this, but I would like to hear more 
from the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).
  Mr. JONES. Just one more question while my colleagues are standing 
here to talk about this issue.
  Is it not true that a constitutional amendment, as my colleague said 
in his earlier remarks, certainly the Constitution is like the Bible. 
It is sacred. It guarantees our right to practice our freedom, which, 
again, religion to be practiced freely. If the Constitution is to be 
amended, if it passes the House, and I want my colleague to touch on 
this, and the Senate, then it goes back to the States. Would the 
gentleman briefly explain that process for those that might be watching 
around this country so they know that they will actually have the final 
say through their legislative process?
  Mr. ISTOOK. Certainly.
  The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, understood there could be some 
problems that would require somebody who misinterpreted the 
Constitution, as the Supreme Court has done. So they created within the 
Constitution a mechanism which is a constitutional amendment, which has 
been used a couple dozen times in this country; and it is a very 
straightforward mechanism. There is an alternate one with conventions.
  But basically it says, two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the 
Senate approve a constitutional amendment. Then it goes to the States 
for ratification. Three-fourths of the States must ratify that 
amendment. Now, they do not need a two-thirds vote in each of those 
States. They only need a simple majority. But it is done through the 
legislatures.
  We notice there is no official role of the President or of the 
governors of the State. It is done by the House and the Senate of the 
Congress, and then it goes to the State legislature for the Houses and 
Senates and Assemblies, as they are called, in the various States.
  That is the process. That is the process we are following with the 
religious freedom amendment. I would like to point out that that is the 
process that has been followed several times when the U.S. Supreme 
Court had a distortion that Congress thought was necessary to correct.
  The 11th amendment to the Constitution was to overturn a U.S. Supreme 
Court decision about whether States could be sued in Federal courts by 
citizens of other States. And the 14th amendment, the first portion of 
it, was intended to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which had held 
that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not become 
citizens of the United States. So the 14th amendment was a 
constitutional correction of a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The income 
tax amendment involved changing a U.S. Supreme Court amendment. That 
was the 16th amendment.

  So this is the process that has been followed in other cases. Also, 
the 26th amendment, to make 18 the voting age. They are all responses 
to decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. So, too, the religious freedom 
amendment is in response to a number of decisions of the U.S. Supreme 
Court.
  We may want to detail some of those in a minute and how this affects 
some of those decisions. But it is responding to the anti-prayer, anti-
Ten Commandments, anti-nativity scenes, and anti-graduation prayer and 
similar decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. We are following the 
process set up by the Founding Fathers.
  Mr. JONES. I want to thank the gentleman very much for his leadership 
and to tell him that many people in the Third District of North 
Carolina are very pleased that he, along with many of his colleagues, 
some here tonight, have fought on this issue. We hope and we pray that 
we do have a debate this year on this floor dealing with trying to 
clarify our constitutional rights to practice our religion.
  Mr. ISTOOK. I very much appreciate the comments of the gentleman from 
North Carolina.
  Before recognizing another colleague, I would like to elaborate a bit 
on something the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) brought up, which 
was the Founding Fathers' intent.
  He talked about George Washington. A lot of people do not know that 
the day after the first amendment was approved by the Congress, 
Washington asked Congress to declare a national day of prayer and 
fasting. Obviously, he did not think that was inconsistent with what 
Congress had just done, because they turned around and they approved a 
day of prayer and fasting.
  In fact, when we talk about the intent of the Founding Fathers, I 
know different people say, well, Thomas Jefferson said this and that. 
Of course, he did not draft the first amendment. He was not there. But 
if we want to go to an authoritative source for what the first 
amendment really intended to do and to look for some guidance on this 
catch phrase that is used often without thinking, this catch phrase 
that says, ``separation of church and State,'' what does it mean, why 
do we not choose for our authority the Chief Justice of the United 
States Supreme Court, William Rehnquist?
  I am not talking about the Chief Justice 200 years ago. I am talking 
about the one today that, as part of his work, has gone through and 
studied it. And in one of the official decisions, and he was a 
dissenter in this decision, but he talked about this; and that was the 
5-4 decision that came down in 1985 in the case of Wallace v. Jaffrey, 
where the U.S. Supreme Court said that for a State to permit a moment 
of silence, for a State to permit a moment of silence in public schools 
was unconstitutional because it could be used by students to say a 
silent prayer.
  That is how outrageous the decisions have gotten. It was a 5-4 
decision of the Supreme Court. And Justice Rehnquist, in commenting 
about what the other Justices were doing, wrote about this term 
``separation of church and State.''
  I want to tell my colleagues what Chief Justice Rehnquist said. He 
said, the term ``separation of church and State'' has caused a 
``mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the 
drafters of the Bill of Rights. The wall of separation between church 
and State is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has 
proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and 
explicitly abandoned.''
  Those are the words of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 
who wrote them just right across the street from this building as part 
of an official opinion. Why? Because he studied it. And, as he said, 
``The evil to be aimed at, so far as its drafters were concerned, 
appears to have been the establishment of a national church and perhaps 
the preference of one religious sect over another. But it was 
definitely not concerned about whether the government might aid all 
religions evenhandedly.''
  So I take no less authority than the Chief Justice of the U.S. 
Supreme Court to say that that term has been used to twist and distort 
the real meaning and the real intention of the first amendment. The 
religious freedom amendment follows what Justice Rehnquist said was the 
actual intention and should still be the actual intention of the first 
amendment had it not been corrected.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to my friend for yielding. I 
had a few remarks in response to the gentleman's points, but I wish to 
begin by commending him for the thoughtful research that he has put 
into this resolution and into this draft.

[[Page H1843]]

  First, though, let me just observe, as the gentleman from Oklahoma 
observes quite accurately and also the gentleman from Missouri 
observes, the Supreme Court sits in a building with the symbols of 
Moses and the Ten Commandments.
  I had the very great honor to serve as a law clerk to Mr. Justice 
White on the United States Supreme Court. And every day when we opened 
argument, the Supreme Court began in the following manner: ``Oyez, 
oyez, oyez. All persons having business before the honorable, the 
Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give 
their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United 
States and this honorable court.''
  Now, if those exact same words were said by a high school 
valedictorian in her commencement address, I take it that at least some 
Federal judge would say, ``Impermissible because you have asked God's 
blessing on government's property.''

                              {time}  1930

  It must be remarkably ironic for the Supreme Court to deal with this 
issue, knowing that the very day they began the argument they invoked 
God's blessing on their proceedings.
  The second point I wanted to share, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. 
Istook) has been quite scholarly in his research of the Constitution 
and the fact that we have amended it many times in response to Supreme 
Court opinions, that one must be thoughtful one does not do this 
lightly. But the process is such that it cannot be done lightly, 
requiring, as it does, the two-thirds approval of the Senate, excuse 
me, of the other body, of the House of Representatives, and then three-
quarters approval of the various States.
  Then, in addition to the amendments that the gentleman raised which 
were in response to the Supreme Court opinions, I do not know if you 
mentioned, but the 16th belongs there as well, when the Supreme Court 
had said the Congress could not constitutionally impose a tax on 
incomes. There are some of us who might have wished that that decision 
of the Supreme Court stood forever, but it was reversed by an amendment 
to the Constitution to permit the income tax as well as all of the 
other examples that the gentleman raised.
  Thirdly, there is a most remarkable difficulty in consistency with 
the Supreme Court's teaching on free speech. Tinker v. Des Moines is a 
case that speaks to conduct in schools. I am sure that the gentleman 
remembers, I certainly do, during the Vietnam war a number of students 
in the Des Moines school district were interested in expressing their 
opposition to the Vietnam war by wearing black arm bands. The Supreme 
Court not only held that the wearing a black arm band was a form of 
speech, but that it could not be prohibited by the local school board, 
that the individual student had the right to express himself in this 
case by wearing a black arm band.
  I can only speculate, but suppose the student wanted to wear a cross 
or wanted to wear a yarmulke or wanted to wear another symbol of his or 
her particular faith, if engaged in this conduct on government 
property, would the Court say that this is impermissible, when the 
Court said that the school district could not prevent the individual 
from expressing his point of view about the Vietnam war?
  If that is so, then we have created not a protection against the 
establishment of religion, but we have created a discrimination against 
religion. Then the expression of religion is in a lower status than the 
expression of a political point of view.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would engage in a dialogue 
on this, because you are exactly right, you are right on target, I 
believe, with your analysis, because religion has been relegated to a 
category of speech which must be controlled and limited, because 
supposedly it carries some danger or some threat.
  You are familiar, as an attorney, with a number of cases where the 
U.S. Supreme Court has said, even though the First Amendment states an 
absolute right of free speech, that does not give you the right to 
incite a crowd to rebel against the government or to engage in libelous 
and slanderous comment or to yell ``fire'' in a crowded theater and so 
forth.
  So, too, we have some limits on free speech, but we also have freedom 
of religion. They have placed expression of religion, prayer and 
similar things in a category that does not have the same protection as 
you mentioned of wearing a black arm band.
  There may be some other students in class who say, ``I am offended by 
your wearing of a black arm band,'' but that does not give them the 
right to censor the other student. But if the student says, ``I am 
offended because they offer the prayer,'' then the Supreme Court says, 
oh, well, in that case, we are going to say you cannot do it.
  The U.S. Supreme Court has passed decisions protecting the Nazi 
swastika. They have passed decisions protecting the burning of a cross. 
The case I am thinking of, the swastika, it was where the American 
Nazis were wanting to march through Skokie, Illinois, a Jewish 
community with a number of Holocaust survivors. The U.S. Supreme Court 
said no, free speech, no matter how insulting or horrible you may see 
it to be, they still have their right of free speech. But when it comes 
to religious expression, they have said, oh, it is okay, you can 
suppress it.
  In your State of California, the Internal Revenue Service, one of its 
big district offices is Laguna Niguel. I have got a copy of the memo 
that was circulated to the employees of the IRS saying you cannot have 
in your desk or your personal work space a Bible, a picture of Christ, 
a cross, a Star of David, or other religious symbols.
  I wrote the IRS. I said what is this about, telling people that in 
their own desk that they cannot have these? This is part of their 
personal effects out there. The IRS wrote back and they said items 
which are considered intrusive, such as, and I am quoting by the way, 
``items which are considered intrusive, such as religious emblems or 
sexually suggestive cartoons or calendars'' had to be controlled and 
restricted. They have placed religious speech in the same category as 
pornography, requiring not only restriction but prior restraint by the 
government. That is the danger. I wanted to share that with you.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding 
additional time to me to comment.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Certainly.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. The examples you give are most disturbing. I would add 
to them a case with which the gentleman is familiar. It never went to 
the Supreme Court, but a teacher assigns his class a moment, several 
minutes to read an assignment, during which he reaches into his valise, 
produces a Bible, reads from the Bible; when the time is up, closes the 
Bible and puts it back into his valise. Had he been reading the Wall 
Street Journal, it would not have been an issue. Had he been reading 
Das Kapital, it would not be an issue. But because he was reading a 
Bible, it became an issue of disciplining that teacher for having done 
so on school property.
  I would like to, if the gentleman would allow me, to draw particular 
attention to the phraseology of the amendment that he has drafted. A 
number of people of goodwill are concerned that the gentleman is 
amending the First Amendment, and they hold the First Amendment in high 
esteem and veneration; one might almost say almost as a religious 
matter.
  The care with which this amendment is drafted, however, surely should 
reassure them that we are not undermining in the slightest the 
protections against the government establishing religion. All the 
gentleman's amendment does is to say that conduct which would otherwise 
not violate the First Amendment, establishment of religion, shall not 
be deemed to violate the First Amendment because it happens to occur on 
government property.
  So if the school says, this is the prayer we will say violates the 
First Amendment, and the Istook amendment would not change that, if the 
school says there shall be only Christian prayer, it violates the First 
Amendment. But if a student in the lunch hour says we would like to 
have a group of Christian students who wish to read the Bible at this 
corner of the lunchroom, it would not be struck down simply because it 
happened on government property. That is a very essential but a very 
narrow change.

  I suspect, without knowing, that the gentleman probably took some 
grief from his friends, from our friends, on

[[Page H1844]]

this debate for not going far enough. Let me commend him for being very 
careful and guiding his direction in this amendment just to the 
situation where the location of speech that would otherwise not violate 
the First Amendment becomes the issue.
  So it must be action of the individual, not the government, as it was 
in the case of that student giving her valedictorian speech. It must be 
action that would not establish religion or choose between religions. 
But the mere fact that it occurs on government property would not make 
it impermissible any more than it is against government, it should be 
against the First Amendment for me tonight to invoke the Lord's name on 
behalf of the cause that we both defend.
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield a moment, and 
let us look at this specific example of prayer in public schools. It 
should not be the role of a principal or a teacher to say we are going 
to have prayer at school or prayer to start the school day or football 
game or whatever. But if the students are saying, and it could be 
individually, it could be collectively, are saying we want to have 
that, then the government is in the position of accommodating that.
  So we have here the language that says the people have a right to 
pray. The government does not prescribe it. It does not prescribe it. 
It does not say you must have the school prayer. It does not say what 
the content has got to be. So the government does not prescribe it. But 
if the people exercising their right say we want to be able to have a 
prayer, we are required by law to be here at school all day, why should 
we be isolated from what is normal just because we are required by law 
to be at school.
  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote about that in some of 
these cases. He stated in a society that so structures a child's life 
where attendance at public school is compulsory, if the child is 
required to be isolated from normal everyday religious influences, then 
religion has been placed in an artificial and State-created 
disadvantage. I think Justice Stewart had it right.
  I would yield further to Mr. Campbell.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, I only have one final remark, although I 
am more than happy to continue if the gentleman would like. You have 
been very gracious in yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the eloquence of the gentleman from 
Oklahoma by adding the references to God in the Declaration of 
Independence. The gentleman from Oklahoma spoke to the opening phrases 
of the Declaration of Independence. I wanted to conclude with the 
ending phrase of the Declaration of Independence.
  As the heroes drew together in Philadelphia to create our country and 
knew they were risking their lives, they concluded by saying,

       And for the support of this declaration, with a firm 
     Reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually 
     pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred 
     Honor.

  Just as they began the declaration with an invocation to God, they 
concluded it with an expression of firm reliance on the protection of 
Divine Providence. Surely it would confound every one of them to think 
that the Lord's name could not be expressed by individual citizens on 
government property.
  I do believe that if the Supreme Court interpreted the Independence 
Hall to be government property in Philadelphia in 1776, they would have 
been hard-pressed to strike down this invocation to the Deity. I 
applaud the gentleman's effort.
  Mr. ISTOOK. I thank the gentleman from California. Mr. Speaker, I 
would note, too, that it is not only the Founding Fathers of the 
country as a whole that were so desirous of making sure that we 
expressed our reliance upon God for our rights and for our values that 
we teach to our children and want to pass on from one generation to 
another, it was not just those who founded the United States, but also 
those who have served as Founding Fathers of our different States have 
seen fit to incorporate language into our State constitutions that 
acknowledges our reliance upon Divine Providence.
  For example, the different State constitutions, each and every one of 
them, all 50 States include an express reference to God within their 
State constitutions. I mention that to some who say, why should we 
mention God in the U.S. Constitution? Why have all 50 States seen fit 
to mention Him in theirs?
  For example, the State constitution in Alaska states that its 
citizens are, ``grateful to God and to those who founded our Nation in 
order to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of 
political, civil, and religious liberty.''
  In Colorado, their constitution includes the phrase, ``with profound 
reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the universe.'' The constitutions of 
Idaho, California, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin all use this 
exact phrase, ``grateful to Almighty God for our freedom.''
  It goes on. I have got a list of all 50 State constitutions and the 
different references to them. It is about time that we understand that 
we have had Founding Fathers, and some of them may have been female as 
well as male, but in all 50 States that have seen this necessity to 
reflect a pillar principle upon which this Nation was founded.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would just 
like to point out this is not just something that State constitutions 
recognize. An overwhelming majority of Americans in every single poll 
express belief in God, 96 percent, 97 percent, 98 percent.
  Then we go about our public business as if the 2 percent or the 3 
percent that have questions about the existence of God should determine 
the way the rest of us approach these topics. Those constitutions 
reflect that every time Americans are polled. That is clear.
  Americans believe that there is a Creator. Certainly, if we approach 
our public business as if there is a Creator, we are going to approach 
public business differently than if we believe that all this is some 
bizarre accident, that these are not creatures of God indeed, but these 
are some accidental collision of protoplasm that have resulted in 
somebody who has become a person on the street.

                              {time}  1945

  Americans believe in God. This amendment allows that to be expressed 
in whatever way they want to express it, and I would just also like to 
point out that the work that you have done on this has been so well 
received that the groups, among many other groups that support, those 
groups would include the American Conference of Jews and Blacks, the 
Catholic Alliance, the Concerned Women of America, the International 
Pentecostal Church of Christ, the Jewish Union, the Salvation Army, the 
Southern Baptist Convention, the Traditional Values Coalition, the U.S. 
Family Network, a broad base of groups that find many topics frankly 
that they do not agree on, agree that this amendment gets us back to 
what the Constitution was intended to say and allows, as our friend 
from California has so well pointed out, allows what is otherwise 
protecting the Constitution to also be part of public functions and 
public ceremonies, and I am grateful to you for your leadership on this 
and grateful to you for yielding me some time to join you tonight and 
in every other effort you make in this regard.
  Mr. ISTOOK. I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Missouri 
and his very excellent insights that he has expressed. I want also to 
express, Mr. Speaker, and I will not go through the whole laundry list 
of other organizations that are supporting the religious freedom 
amendment, but I would like to observe that one of them is, for 
example, the National Association of Evangelicals which represents some 
48 different denominations.
  This is long overdue, Mr. Speaker, that we recognize that all the 
problems in America are not solved by doing things with taxes or 
highways or national defense, that this Nation was founded by people 
who believed in God and believed that our rights came from God as they 
stated in the Declaration of Independence, and if we try to sever our 
freedom and our rights from He who gave our rights to us, and if we say 
that we have to isolate children while they are required to be at 
school, they have to be isolated from these references just because 
there may be some among them or among their parents

[[Page H1845]]

who are so intolerant that they want to silence other people.
  Mr. Speaker, if my freedom of speech exists only when everybody 
around agrees with me, I do not have free speech. If my freedom of 
religion exists only when I am around people who believe the same 
things that I do, then I do not have freedom of religion. If I can not 
express my religious beliefs even when people may disagree with them or 
express my political beliefs or social beliefs or just flat my opinion, 
then I do not have freedom any more. The essence of freedom is that we 
tolerate our differences rather than trying to suppress them, and for 
the courts to take the First Amendment and twist and distort it, and 
say this is now a tool for stopping people from expressing their 
religious belief because they happen to be on public property?
  My kids are required to be on public property to be at school. Does 
that mean they are required to leave behind the teachings that we try 
to give them at home and at church?
  I hear some people say, oh, my goodness, you ought to be happy, you 
can pray at home and you can pray at school. Well fine. But I happen to 
believe in a faith that says pray without ceasing, and it does not say 
that you have to stop praying when you enter onto government property 
or when somebody else is around that says, ``Well, I do not like what 
you are doing.'' I say to them, ``I appreciate that. I am sure that 
there are some things that you may do which I may not like either, but 
I respect and would fight for your right to say and do things with 
which I may disagree, and I would hope that you would have the same 
understanding, the same belief in our Constitution and our principles, 
and that you would say whether I agree with your prayer or your 
religious thoughts or not, I believe you have a right to express 
them.''
  The problem is not with people who want to express the hope and faith 
of prayers. The problem is with people who are intolerant and do not 
want to hear it.
  Mr. Speaker, the religious freedom amendment protects these freedoms 
and these rights, whether it be first grader Zachariah Hood who was 
told he could not read the story of the brothers Jacob and Esau 
reuniting, or whether it be my children or anyone else's or those of us 
in this Congress or any place on public property.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that people will support the religious freedom 
amendment and that more Members will proclaim its necessity.

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