[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H2205-H2206]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     WE NEED PRAYER IN OUR SCHOOLS

  (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the 
remarks of our distinguished Speaker and his leadership.
  We have another school tragedy now in Colorado. Experts are calling 
for more money, more police, more counselors, and certainly that would 
be a help. But I think there is something else fundamentally missing.
  In America, when our schools can teach about Hitler and war but we 
cannot discuss God, something is very wrong, I say to my colleagues. 
Not to

[[Page H2206]]

use this great tragedy as the catalyst for a proposition we should be 
considering, but I believe school prayer should be strongly considered 
by this body. People who pray together are not likely, through history, 
to kill one another. I believe it is a reasonable thing to pursue. It 
may not be the total answer, but it is a start in the right direction.
  Let me remind Members that the Constitution may separate church and 
state, but it was never intended to separate God and the American 
people. We all pray for the families and grieve for the victims.

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