[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 9, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E373-E374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SPEECH OF RON RANKIN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HELEN CHENOWETH

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 9, 1999

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Speaker, it is clear through the writings of our 
Founding Fathers that the freedom of religion and a belief in God was 
essential to the prosperity of this great nation.
  The Declaration of Independence framed our country's political and 
legal systems and a strong reliance and recognition of God because it 
acknowledged that we ``are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights . . .''. Furthermore, Article VI of the Constitution 
states, ``. . . but no religious test shall ever be required as a 
Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.'' 
Additionally, the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from 
the ``establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof.''
  Ron Rankin, a Kootenai County Commissioner from Ceour d' Alene, Idaho 
delivered a powerful speech embodying these principles on November 28, 
1998. I urge all my colleagues to read Mr. Rankin's words to see how 
much we need God's guidance in today's world:

       Our prisons are full. Our jails are full. Crime is rampant 
     in our streets. Our children's minds are corrupted by the 
     media and their bodies by drugs. The cost of criminal justice 
     is sapping our tax dollars to the extent that we are using 
     funds better spent on education just to maintain our 
     detention and correction facilities to protect our families 
     from criminals.
       In spite of these indisputable facts, 26 states and 
     numerous counties and cities that have passed resolutions 
     supporting ``Read Your Bible Week'' in an effort to encourage 
     people to return to the moral absolutes contained therein, 
     are now being challenged in court.
       The American Civil Liberties Union and their liberal 
     supporters are determined to protect us--not from criminals 
     but from ``God'', claiming a separation of church and state 
     clause that does not exist in the Constitution--that glorious 
     standard written by men raised up by God unto that very 
     purpose.
       On July 4th, 1776, there was, signed in the city of 
     Philadelphia, one of America's historic documents which 
     preceded the divinely inspired Constitution--The Declaration 
     of Independence. It marked the birth of this nation, which, 
     under God, was destined to be the cradle of freedom.
       We often forget that in declaring independence from an 
     earthly power, our forefathers made a forthright Declaration 
     of Dependence upon Almighty God. The closing words of this 
     great document solemnly declare ``With a firm reliance on the 
     protection of providence, we mutually pledge to each other 
     our lives--our fortunes--and our sacred honor''.

[[Page E374]]

       The fifty-six courageous men who signed that document knew 
     this was not just high-sounding rhetoric--and that if they 
     succeeded, the best they could expect would be years of 
     struggle in a new nation. If they lost, they would face the 
     hangman's noose as traitors.
       Of the fifty-six, few were long to survive. Five were 
     captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve 
     had their homes sacked, looted, occupied by the enemy or 
     burned.
       Two lost their sons in the army. One had sons captured. 
     Fifty-six died in war from its hardships--or its bullets.
       John Quincy Adams penned these words: ``Posterity--you will 
     never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve 
     your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.''
       For years we flourished as a Christian nation. The Supreme 
     Court, in an 1892 decision, declared: ``Our laws and our 
     institutions must be based upon and embody the teachings of 
     the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be 
     otherwise; and to this extent, civilization and our 
     institutions are emphatically Christian! ``This in a 
     religious people!''
       ``This is historically true. From the discovery of this 
     continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making 
     this affirmation--we find everywhere a clear recognition of 
     the same truth--that this is a Christian nation.'' This from 
     the Supreme Court: 1892.
       In this century, our great nation began to crumble morally.
       In June of 1962 the Supreme Court, which once ruled that 
     America was a Christian Nation, declared prayer in public 
     schools to be unconstitutional. The Bible and God Himself, 
     were expelled. This in spite of the fact that America's 
     greatest leaders have shown no doubt about God's proper place 
     in the American government!
       Every session of the House and Senate begins with prayer--
     each house has its own Chaplain.
       The Eighty-third Congress set aside a small room in the 
     capital, just off the rotunda, for the private prayer and 
     meditation of members of Congress. The room's focal point is 
     a stained glass window showing George Washington knelling in 
     prayer. Behind him is etched these words from Psalms 16:1 
     ``Preserve me, O God for in thee do I put my trust.''
       Inside the rotunda is a picture of the Pilgrims about to 
     embark on the sister ship of the Mayflower--the Speedwell. 
     The ship's revered chaplain, Brewster, who later join the 
     Mayflower, has open on his lap, the Bible.
       Very clear are the words, ``The New Testament, according to 
     our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.'' On the sail is the motto 
     of the Pilgrims--IN GOD WE TRUST, GOD BE WITH US.''
       The phrase, ``In God We Trust'' appears opposite the 
     President of the Senate, who is the Vice President of the 
     United States. The same phrase, in large words inscribed in 
     marble, backdrops the Speaker of the House of 
     Representatives.
       Above the head of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
     are the Ten Commandments, with the Great American eagle 
     protecting them. Moses is included among the great lawgivers 
     in a marble sculpture on the east front. The crier who opens 
     each session, closes with these words; ``God save the United 
     States and the Honorable Court.''
       Engraved on the metal cap on top of the Washington Monument 
     are the words: ``Praise Be To God.'' Lining the walls of the 
     stairwell are such biblical phrases as, ``Search the 
     Scriptures'', ``Holiness to the Lord'', ``Train up a child in 
     the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart 
     from it.''
       Numerous quotations from the scriptures can be found within 
     the walls of the Library of Congress. One reminds each 
     American of this responsibility to his Maker. ``What doth the 
     Lord require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy, and 
     walk humbly with thy God.'' (Micah 6:8) Another preserves the 
     psalmists acknowledgement that all nature reflects the order 
     and beauty of the Creator: ``The Heavens declare the Glory of 
     God, and the firmament showeth His handwork.'' (psalm 19:1) 
     And still another reference: ``The Light shineth in darkness, 
     and the darkness comprehendeth it not.'' (John 1:5)
       I, like millions of others, have stood in the Lincoln 
     Memorial and gazed up at the statute of the great Abraham 
     Lincoln. The sculptor who chiseled the features of Lincoln in 
     granite seems to make Lincoln speak his own words inscribed 
     into the walls: ``* * * that this nation, under God, shall 
     have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the 
     people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from 
     the earth.'' At the opposite end, on the north wall, his 
     second inaugural address alludes to ``God'', ``the Bible'', 
     ``Providence'', ``The Almighty'' and ``divine attributes.'' 
     And then continues: ``As was said three thousand years ago, 
     and so it still must be said, `The judgements of the Lord are 
     true and righteous altogether.' ''
       At the Jefferson Memorial on the south banks of 
     Washington's tidal basin, Jefferson still speaks: ``God who 
     gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation 
     be secure when we have removed a conviction that these 
     liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my 
     country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice 
     cannot sleep forever.'' This is indeed an explicit warning to 
     us. Especially to us in this day that, to allow God to be 
     removed from this country, will surely destroy it.
       A result of our lack of resolve--the once Great American 
     Dream is turning into a spiritual nightmare. America has 
     rejected God in dealing with the issues of life. When God 
     fades from a nation's conscience, one can justify almost 
     anything. For example:
       God says: ``Thou shalt not kill.''
       Americans have given murder a new name and now abort one 
     and one half million babies a year. Many try to camouflage 
     sin with new age terminology.
       God calls it ``Drunkenness.''
       We call it alcoholism--a social disease.
       God calls it ``Sodomy.''
       We call it homosexuality--gay rights--an ``Alternative 
     Lifestyle.''
       God calls it ``Perversion.''
       We call it pornography--``Adult'' entertainment.
       God calls it ``Immorality.''
       We call it the ``New'' morality.
       God calls it ``Cheating.''
       We call it abnormal social development.
       With the erosion of moral absolutes Jefferson's warning 
     should make us all shudder as each succeeding generation 
     drifts further from the moral absolutes of the Lord.
       As revealed in the scriptures and banned by the courts from 
     our schools, the words of a great Christian reformer, Martin 
     Luther, become prophetic. ``I am much afraid that schools 
     will prove to be great gates of Hell unless they diligently 
     labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in 
     the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where 
     the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in 
     which men are not increasingly occupied with the work of God 
     must become corrupt.''
       And on occasions when we pay tribute to and acknowledge the 
     sacrifices of those men raised up by the Lord to establish 
     and sustain our independence, we must re-dedicate ourselves 
     to protecting and preserving those liberties and the 
     righteous, God-fearing ideals that have been fought and died 
     for by patriots throughout our American history.
       In two hundred and twenty-two years, Americans have fought 
     many wars from Valley Forge to the far-flung corners of the 
     earth. From the bloody beaches of Normandy to the island by 
     island war in the Pacific, to the frozen mountains of the 
     Chosin Reservoir, millions of young Americans have given 
     their lives for the freedoms vouchsafed by our divinely-
     inspired Constitution . . . for this nation under God.
       In all of these wars fought on the field of battle, our 
     enemies were definable. They wore uniforms. They fought with 
     bayonets, grenades, rifles, cannons, mortars. A far more 
     insidious enemy faces us today and we must prepare our youth 
     for a more hard-fought battle for survival than we have ever 
     known!
       Girded up in the Armor of Truth and Knowledge and in the 
     strength of our families, our youth will not be fighting in 
     trenches, foxholes or storming beaches. The enemy is amongst 
     us and not in uniform. His weapons are the media, new age 
     philosophies designed to deceive and destroy the moral 
     character of our youth. Perversion, disguised as tolerance.
       Their battlefield will be the city halls, the county 
     courthouses, state legislatures and the Congress. They must 
     be prepared and we must prepare them that they may hold high, 
     with new resolve, the Title of Liberty in memory of our God, 
     our religion and freedom and our peace and our wives and 
     children.
       In Patrick Henry's words: ``The enemy is in the field. Why 
     stand we here idle?''
       May God bless us all with continued freedom. May God bless 
     our youth with the strength and resolve to bear the burden 
     our complacency has placed upon them.
       And may God continue to bless America.

       

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