[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1903]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SET ASIDE RELIGION IN PUBLIC DEBATE

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                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 25, 2003

  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, last month the Kansas City Star carried an 
insightful guest column by Rabbi Mark Levin of Congregation Beth Torah 
of Overland Park, Kansas, which is located in my congressional 
district.
  Rabbi Levin's column addresses the increasingly corrosive blending of 
religious doctrines with policy discourse in our Nation's public life. 
I commend his views to you and to the membership of the House and I 
hope we all can follow the guidelines he suggests.

                      [From the Kansas City Star]

                  Set Aside Religion in Public Debate

                           (By Mark H. Levin)

       As a member of a minority religion, I know that in order to 
     enter the public square with my deeply held religious beliefs 
     I must frame arguments in ways that address a commonly held 
     language of all members of this society, no matter what their 
     religion might be.
       If I engage in a public debate I cannot quote Jewish 
     literature and expect my fellow citizens of different 
     religions to feel commanded to act, or even persuaded for 
     that matter, because they do not accept the authority of the 
     argument.
       I may argue out of the American legal tradition or on 
     philosophical grounds, but I cannot expect to have others 
     respond to my arguments simply because I say that God 
     commanded such and such, or because the Jewish traditions say 
     so.
       A terrible confusion occurred last week with the insulting 
     debate in the Senate regarding the nomination of Alabama 
     Attorney General William Pryor to a federal appeals court. 
     Some felt that he was being excluded by his Catholic 
     religious values. Or, as one advertisement put it, 
     ``Catholics need not apply.''
       Pryor's religious affiliations should be inconsequential to 
     his possible role as a judge. Even if Pryor came to his 
     conclusions because he is a Catholic, he, as well as those 
     who support him and those who oppose him, must publicly 
     debate those values as part of their nonsectarian, American 
     philosophy, not based upon their religious beliefs, no matter 
     how fervent.
       Thus in a multicultural, religiously diverse society, 
     religious values must be translated into general 
     philosophical principles. All those who argue in the public 
     square are obligated to state their principles and values in 
     terms of our common philosophical heritage.
       To oppose a person's personal religious conclusions is not 
     to oppose his religion. The issue is not how a person arrives 
     at his or her conclusions, but how she or he defends those 
     conclusions in the nonsectarian language that forms the core 
     of public debate in this democracy.
       Arguing on religious grounds, we do not share philosophical 
     assumptions and therefore the debate will never be truly 
     joined. We will be speaking only to our co-religionists, 
     while feigning a public debate.
       Our politicians should know and understand that their 
     personal lives and values remain their own, but their public 
     debates must be based on the nonsectarian assumptions of 
     philosophical argument that all citizens can accept.

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