[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 19 (Thursday, February 28, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H646-H647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TEN COMMANDMENTS SHOULD REMAIN ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, we are told that ``there is a time for 
everything and a season for every activity under heaven.'' At this time 
in our Nation's history, it is undeniable that citizens have found a 
newfound interest in spiritual things. And until 2 days ago, the 
Supreme Court was poised to hear a case from my home State of Indiana 
that was driven by, I believe, this newfound interest in the permanent 
things in our lives.
  Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannan had asked to have the Ten 
Commandments posted on the lawn of the Indiana State House. It was the 
governor's purpose to replace a plaque that had been there for decades, 
Mr. Speaker. It had been desecrated and destroyed by vandals. But on 
Tuesday of this week,

[[Page H647]]

the Supreme Court of the United States of America refused to take the 
case.
  In a similar case in the city of Richmond, Indiana, in my own 
district, the county government has been sued by the local civil 
liberties union. The plaintiff in the case has requested that Wayne 
County, Indiana, remove the Ten Commandments from the courthouse lawn, 
commandments that have stood, Mr. Speaker, on the lawn of the Wayne 
County courthouse for over 4 decades.
  Lawsuits like this are being brought before courts across the 
country. As I have said, Mr. Speaker, these cases come at a unique time 
in our Nation's history. I am greatly disappointed that the Supreme 
Court has refused to hear this case at such a time as this. Not only 
are these lawsuits to remove the Ten Commandments from our Nation's 
public buildings based on a flawed reading of the U.S. Constitution, 
but I assert it also reveals a profound misunderstanding of the 
foundations of our national government.
  The first amendment to the Constitution reads, as we all know, that 
``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' As scholars and average 
citizens know, until the 1960s, most Americans understood this to be 
the Establishment Clause. It was intended to allow Americans to worship 
freely and prevented the Federal Government from creating any official 
religion. The Establishment Clause was interpreted again and again by 
the Supreme Court to be a requirement that we as Americans accommodate 
in the public square the fact that we are, as one court wrote a 
``deeply religious peoples whose institutions presuppose a supreme 
being.'' In fact, on the very walls of this Chamber that read, in my 
presence, the phrase, ``In God We Trust,'' on the very walls of the 
United States Supreme Court hang the Ten Commandments themselves, this 
is proven out.
  Beginning with the Supreme Court's decision in Everson v. Board of 
Education, our courts have reinterpreted the meaning of the 
Establishment Clause, and now many Americans believe the phrase, ``wall 
of separation of church and State'' actually appears in our 
Constitution.
  Chief Justice William Rehnquist said, and I am quoting now, ``There 
is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers 
intended to build a `wall of separation' '' as expressed in the Everson 
case. ``The 'wall of separation' between church and State is a metaphor 
based,'' the Chief Justice said, ``on bad history, a metaphor which has 
proved useless as a guide to judging.''
  With the phrase ``bad history,'' the Chief Justice points out, 
perhaps the greatest problems with those like the civil liberty lawyers 
who would remove all vestiges of religion from public life, a lack of 
understanding about the foundations of our Nation and our national 
laws. As I said, Mr. Speaker, the reality is that as evidenced on these 
walls, as evidenced as I look up in this Chamber and am looked down 
upon by the very gaze and likeness of Moses himself, the reality is 
that the Ten Commandments represent not just the cornerstone of the 
three great religions of planet Earth, but also they are the 
inconvenient cornerstone of western civilization. They are, however 
inconvenient to the modernists and the liberals of our day, they are 
the cornerstone of our moral and legal and governmental institutions in 
Western Civilization.
  So for the court to have missed an opportunity this week to reframe 
our constitutional law to once again accommodate the religious 
expression of good people, the good people of Indiana, the good people 
of Wayne County, Indiana, is deeply saddening to me and to many 
millions of Americans.
  Therefore, next week, Mr. Speaker, I will do what I can in this 
Chamber to reset the legal dial to join this national debate. I will 
introduce legislation known as the Ten Commandments Defense Act that 
will allow States to determine the appropriate display of this 
inconvenient cornerstone of Western Civilization.

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