[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 102 (Wednesday, September 6, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8066-S8067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FAITH AND POLITICS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Vice President 
Gore on his particularly fine choice of a running mate for the coming 
Fall election.
  Joe Lieberman is an able Senator. More importantly, he is a sincere 
and thoughtful Senator. He really fits no ideological sleeve, although 
some are already busily trying to label him. Joe Lieberman is his own 
man, I believe. He follows his own conscience, I am confident of that, 
as even these early days of the Presidential campaign have already 
demonstrated.
  Senator Lieberman has firmly gripped the national political steering 
wheel, and he is bravely addressing one of the more fundamental issues 
before this Nation, namely the erosion of faith-based values from 
public life and public policy and the consequences of that regrettable 
loss.
  On July 17, I took this Senate floor to express my own general 
concern and alarm over the direction this nation seems to be taking 
when it comes to spiritual values. My speech on that occasion was aimed 
in particular at a recent Supreme Court decision regarding voluntary 
prayer at a high school football game, but my remarks reflected my 
long-held general view that the Supreme Court has gone too far on such 
matters, and has increasingly misinterpreted the Framers intent 
regarding the establishment clause and perhaps more to the point the 
free exercise clause of the first amendment.
  During my remarks, I called for a Constitutional amendment which 
might help to clarify the Framers' intentions. I even wrote to both 
Presidential candidates, with the hope of focusing attention on the 
matter, and thereby starting a national conversation about the proper 
place of religion in our public life, in our political life, in our 
country's life.
  My friend, Joe Lieberman, has done this Nation a great service by 
making his belief that faith-based principles and religion must and 
ought to have a place in our national policy and in our discussions 
about directions and priorities.
  To my utter amazement, however, Joe Lieberman has been misunderstood, 
and even maligned by some.
  My colleague, now a candidate for the second highest office in the 
land, is not trying to force his religion or any religion down the 
throats of any unwilling recipient. Nor is Joe Lieberman claiming, at 
least I do not read his remarks in this way, that a person cannot be 
moral if that person is not religious--even though I have to say that 
George Washington made it clear that without religion, morality cannot 
prevail; George Washington, in his Farewell Address. So, upon that 
authority I would rest my case. Joe Lieberman is simply saying that in 
trying to assure that no one is coerced into embracing any one 
religion, or any religion, for that matter, the pendulum may have swung 
too far. Joe Lieberman is simply expressing his own, and many other 
people's views, that it sometimes appears that persons of religious 
faith are not allowed their full freedom to practice and live their 
various faiths as their consciences dictate. He wants to have a 
national conversation about that, and I applaud his courage, for it is 
a subject easily misunderstood.
  Political correctness gets in the way of all too many things in this 
country of ours. I am not a subscriber of political correctness by any 
means, shape or form. It has gotten in the way of an honest and open 
dialogue about how to allow for the open expression of faith-based 
values and practices for those who want those things in their lives, 
without infringing on the rights and beliefs of those who don't.
  In my humble opinion, we must, as a Nation have this dialogue. The 
pendulum has swung too far. The Framers did not intend surely for a 
totally secular society to be forced on the populace by government 
policy. They only wished for individuals to be free to embrace whatever 
faith they wished, or none at all, if they desired none.
  Prayer abounds throughout the speeches of our great men. References 
to God virtually drip from our public buildings, and invocations of the 
Creator's blessing crop up at every important public gathering 
throughout our history. We have wandered off the Framers' track on 
this, and we need to work toward a better understanding of what was 
intended, what was to be protected and why.
  I hope that our fine colleague, Mr. Lieberman, continues to try to 
further the conversation. Not to do so would be detrimental. I fear 
that the misunderstanding about this issue is huge and growing. There 
is a new sort of intolerance about religion that I find most 
disturbing. It has become the thing we don't talk about, because it is 
not politically correct, so many of us are driven into a closet. It is 
seen as a divider in our culture, instead of the

[[Page S8067]]

force for good it certainly can and should be.
  Where we do not want to go, and where we have rapidly been heading, 
is toward an instituted governmental policy which is prejudiced against 
all religion. We need to think long and hard about this together, as a 
country. How sadly ironic it would be if, after over 200 years, a 
nation grounded in religion and founded by religious men and women, 
with shining faith-based ideals about equality, fairness, freedom, and 
justice, and decades of effort to make those ideals a reality, wound up 
reflecting in its laws and policies a prejudice against religion and 
religious people.

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