[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 59 (Friday, April 11, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5318-S5319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    SECRETARY OF EDUCATION ROD PAIGE

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we recently heard a wonderful address by 
Senator Byrd when he talked about Easter and expressed his views about 
it. He did so as a believer. This is a great and wonderful free 
country, and we are able to express our views.
  I wish to take a few moments to comment on some of the attacks from 
the left on a comment recently made by Secretary of Education Rod 
Paige.
  Secretary Paige is a great educator, a great man. I am so impressed 
with him. When he took over the Houston County school system in Texas, 
only 37 percent of the students were passing the basic Texas test. In 5 
years, by bringing on discipline, accountability, a rigorous testing 
program, not accepting failing schools and being intolerant of them, 
and being intolerant of educators who were not performing, he doubled 
the number of students passing that test. As he told me, in the fourth 
or fifth year, he got a little extra money, but basically he achieved 
those results without extra money in the Texas State school system.
  I believe he is a tremendous man. He loves those children. He loves 
the children more than he does the bureaucrats and the educators. He 
wants to know if they are learning, and he cares about them. He cares 
about their values. He cares about whether or not they are becoming 
better children, not just smarter children.
  The complaints arose from a story published in the Washington Post 
which misquoted the Secretary. This is what the quote was in the 
Washington Post, quoting Secretary Paige:

       All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a 
     school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the 
     Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong 
     faith.

  First of all, a lot of Americans believe that. Lots of Americans 
believe that. I submit a majority of Americans believe that. But, this 
is what a tape recording of his question-and-answer interview 
demonstrates that he actually said:
  Question:

       One final question, Mr. Secretary. We're hearing a lot in 
     Christian colleges and universities about Christian world 
     view education. Do you have any comment on that? What do you 
     think about that?

  Answer:

       No, I have not heard enough about that to formulate a view. 
     So I'll probably need to pass on that one.

  But they did not let him get away with that. You know how they press.
  Question:

       Given the choice between private and Christian or private 
     and public universities, who do you think has the best deal?
  Secretary Paige answered:

       That's a judgment, too, that would vary because each of 
     them have real strong points and some of them have some 
     vulnerabilities, but you know, all things being equal, I'd 
     prefer to have a child in a school where there's a strong 
     appreciation for values, the kinds of values that I think are 
     associated with the Christian communities so that this child 
     can be brought up in an environment that teaches them to have 
     strong faith and to understand that there is a force in their 
     lives.

  So the Secretary of Education basically was saying he would like to 
have a child in a school where there is a strong appreciation for 
values, and those values are sometimes associated with the Christian 
communities. So that brought the left up in arms.
  That is what we are too often reduced to in this country, that one is 
not able to express those kinds of ideas. So we are at the point now 
where we question whether or not the words, ``In God We Trust,'' should 
be on the wall of this Chamber. There they are, several inches high, 
right over the main door to this Chamber.
  Are we going to rip that down? Take down the Ten Commandments that 
are in the Supreme Court building? Have no prayer at football games at 
graduation? That pretty well has been taken care of. I remember when 
former President Jimmy Carter's Attorney General, the wonderful Griffin 
Bell, was asked about litmus tests for judges, and he responded without 
hesitation. He had left office at that point or he probably would have 
caused a controversy. He said: I tell you we ought to have a litmus 
test. Nobody should be a Federal judge who does not believe in prayer 
at football games.
  We cannot say ``under God'' in the pledge now according to the Ninth 
Circuit Court of Appeals. They struck down the Pledge of Allegiance. 
They are not happy with the Boy Scouts because they teach values and 
they believe in disciplining personal behavior. We certainly cannot do 
those things in school, the left says.
  So what we are asking for, it seems to me, or at least the hard left 
is, elimination of any reference to moral or spiritual values in public 
life in this country, and I do not think that is how we were founded.
  Secretary Paige has dedicated his entire career to promoting children 
and promoting diversity, making sure that all children of all ethnic 
groups and all faiths have access to the best possible education. Yes, 
he is a man of faith. He is a man of conviction. He is a man of 
character. Those are good reasons for

[[Page S5319]]

him to be the Secretary of Education. Do we want someone who is not?
  Secretary Paige talks about preferring a school that has a strong 
sense of values; not that he is requiring or thinks all children should 
go to Christian schools. He never said that. He uses Christianity as an 
example of those values because that is his background, because he has 
made it very clear he believes the same could be said of other 
religions.
  I agree with what the Secretary said, and I think that those who 
would attack him for talking about the state of American education are 
doing a tremendous disservice to our children.
  Let's face it, this is part of a regular, organized attack on faith 
more than it is a complaint about Dr. Paige. It is close to requiring a 
religious test for public service, prohibited by our traditions in law. 
It is saying that your religion must be secular; people of faith need 
not apply. If you have any religious beliefs, keep them to yourself, do 
not let them guide you, for heaven's sake, in anything that you might 
do.

  Unfortunately, there is a group in this country, small but very 
vocal, who are offended by any expression of faith in public life. I 
think we have drifted out of sync, we have drifted away from what we 
are about. I do not think it is healthy.
  Religion is woven into the fabric of our great Nation. Faith has 
always guided our leaders. I think most Americans were taught, as I was 
taught, not to make fun of someone else's religion, to respect their 
faith. It did not have to be the same as yours. Ronald Reagan called 
America ``a shining city on a hill.''
  We are a nation that believes so deeply in our values we confidently 
promote those values around the world.
  Reagan understood the role of religion in fulfilling our mission. 
Here is what he believed about God in schools:

       The Declaration of Independence mentions the Supreme Being 
     no less than four times. ``In God We Trust'' is engraved on 
     our coinage--

  And I will note, on that wall right there.

       The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious 
     invocation--

  Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. God bless this Honorable Court and save 
these United States.

       And the Members of Congress open their sessions with a 
     prayer.

  We have a prayer every time this door opens.

       I just happen to believe the schoolchildren of the United 
     States are entitled to the same privileges as Supreme Court 
     Justices and Congressmen.

  I think we have gone too far. Thomas Jefferson, whom we know to be 
the architect of that great Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and 
who is considered to be a great bulwark of the separation of church and 
state, said:

       I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered to contain 
     the outlines of the sublimest system of morality that has 
     ever been taught.

  He would not make Secretary of State today if he were to say that. 
People can have different views. Public officials can express their own 
views. President Reagan said:

       Without God there is no virtue because there is no 
     prompting of the conscience; without God, there is a 
     coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and 
     cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we are One Nation 
     Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.

  If one wants to see a nation that has a virtueless government, all 
they have to do is look at Iraq for the last 25 years. Certainly, 
Saddam Hussein was not a religious person of any kind, Muslim or any 
other faith. To see such a nation gone under and to see a revival, one 
had to just turn on the television on Wednesday morning to see the 
exhilaration of the Iraqis dancing on Saddam Hussein's statue.
  I thought about that poem: My name is Ozymandius, king of kings. Look 
on my face and beware, and now it has fallen in the desert and nobody 
has seen it in a thousand years.
  For decades, these helpless citizens have lived under a government 
without, more or less, virtues or values. The only thing that was 
valued by the government was the power and privilege of the Saddam 
Hussein regime. Their own might was their God.
  The Iraqi people, on the other hand, have been liberated by a group 
of nations, led by our Nation, a government that was motivated by 
values--liberty, justice, democracy, morality, fairness, equality. 
Those are the sorts of values I think Secretary Paige was talking 
about. Right and wrong. Right and wrong does not come from the self-
interest of whatever dictator happens to be in power. Right and wrong 
comes from the Creator.
  At our core, we are, and remain a people who believe that each life 
has sacredness, and that is why our military would not leave one life 
or not rest with one POW still in prison or even without a body 
recovered because we believe life is sacred. As the Declaration says, 
we are a people endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. 
Thus, right and wrong for believers never changes. And millions of 
Americans, many of them Christians, Muslims, and Jews, take their 
guidance on questions of right and wrong out of their core faith in a 
creating God.
  Before those on the secular left attack people for expressing their 
religious beliefs or their desires to instill values and moral and 
religious values in their children, I would urge them to take a step 
back and think about the millions of people of faith in this country. 
We strike the right balance in America, I believe. Religion is okay, we 
think. It is good. It is to be encouraged, not diminished, but we 
respect people of other faiths. We do not demean them.
  People can come here from Muslim nations and live happily and safely, 
and if any of them are harmed we defend them; we prosecute those who 
harm them. We will not accept that. It is our heritage.

  The complaints on Secretary Paige should be turned down. It is time 
to reacquaint ourselves with the principles of our Founders. They got 
it right. Every person was free to be faithful or to be secular, to 
follow their own creed. Government should never bring force to bear, 
our Founders said, on the mind of man. Never establish a church by the 
government.
  But the Constitution does provide free exercise. The Constitution 
simply says about religious faith: Congress--us--shall make no law 
respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof.
  Secretary Paige was not out stirring this issue up. He had to be 
asked repeatedly before he even got into the subject. It was not on his 
mind. He was asked and he gave his personal view. He said: I think. He 
did not say ``everybody else did'' or ``You must believe.'' He said: I 
think we should have an appreciation for values, the kinds of values 
often associated with the Christian community.
  What is wrong with that? Have we gone that far down the road to 
denying the right of our American citizens to freely exercise and 
comment on their faith? I hope not.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.

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