[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H616-H617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ALLEGATIONS OF RELIGIOUS BIAS AMONG REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP IS PURE BUNK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sherwood). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow along with the words echoed 
by my colleague from New York.
  I am a Roman Catholic as well, and I do not understand this all of a 
sudden finger pointing over choices of chaplains or questioning 
people's beliefs. I personally work very closely with the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) as Speaker of this House. In fact, he was 
the one that nominated me to be on the Committee on Ways and Means, 
considerably one of the most important committees of this Congress. The 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), another fine gentleman who I work 
with every single day as majority leader, and the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. DeLay), and others who occupy the office of majority whip. I am a 
deputy whip. So I can assure every American that is interested in 
listening that none of these leaders indicates any bias towards anybody 
of any faith.
  Now, I have a disagreement on at least the position of chaplain, and 
I long ago advocated we not have a chaplain; that we allow visiting 
chaplains from around the country so we would have the opportunity to 
have a Rabbi and have a Protestant minister or a Baptist minister and a 
Catholic priest. I personally go to my own church for salvation, and I 
do not choose to use the services of the chaplain.
  At times I question having one, inasmuch as we do not allow kids to 
pray in school yet we start every day with a prayer. So I find it a 
little complicated. But at the same time I do not doubt for one minute 
that the choice made by the Speaker was a valid, genuine choice on that 
gentleman's part to serve this entire body, not to single out and not 
to ratchet up the debate.
  It is amazing. I hear the other side of the aisle all of a sudden 
acting as if they are for all Catholics. If we look at the voting 
records of most of the Members, we would probably have to question 
considerably whether they maintain the very principles and edicts that 
the Catholic churches espouses. There is a complete virtual 
disagreement on virtually every issue the Catholic church uses and 
would be measured on a scorecard if you had to have one on that basis.
  I ask the Members to please stop this finger pointing. Stop the 
finger pointing and questioning people's values and beliefs. When Spike 
Lee made the comment about going to shoot Charleton Heston, I did not 
see any long-standing parade of speakers urging the rejection of this 
kind of thought. They sat quietly by and allowed that to be part of the 
mainstream dialogue.
  When I hear Louis Farakhan on the mall marching against people and 
calling people names, I do not hear this outrage from Members on the 
other side of the body screaming about how intolerant people are. No, 
they are silent. But they can use something like this as a wedge issue.
  George W. Bush goes to Bob Jones University certainly not to espouse 
or advocate positions held by one man that leads that church. There 
were thousands and thousands of students that wanted to hear the 
nominee, potentially, of the Republican Party address the issues that 
are important to

[[Page H617]]

them, as if any of us are invited. Daily we are invited to places. I 
was invited to a synagogue. Of course, I went to speak to my 
constituents about issues important to them at a synagogue. I am a 
Catholic. Should I have not gone simply because it was not a house of 
worship in my own faith?
  So I denounce this and ask people to be a little more civil and a 
little bit more respectful of the differences that we have as Americans 
on fundamental beliefs and principles. We should all agree that the 
nice thing about the United States of America is that we can worship in 
the way we so choose. We can go to the places of worship we recognize 
as those that lead our faith. But we do not cast aspersion nor do we 
criticize people.
  So this commentary that somehow the Speaker is biased and the 
majority leader is biased is pure bunk. And, again, I say to my 
colleagues that if they are compassionate, if they are one of faith, if 
they are one that deeply believes Catholicism is an important religion, 
those who seem to be defending it today and saying that Republicans are 
anti-Catholic, I can clearly assure them, clearly assure them from the 
bottom of my heart, that that is not the premise of the Republican 
Party and it is certainly not that of our leadership.

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