[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 18 (Thursday, February 12, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1271-S1272]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE DEFICIT OF DECENCY

  Mr. MILLER. The Old Testament prophet, Amos, was a sheep herder who 
lived back in the Judean hills, away from the larger cities of 
Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Compared to the intellectual urbanites like 
Isaiah and Jeremiah, Amos was just an unsophisticated country hick. But 
Amos had a unique grasp of political and social issues, and his poetic 
literary skill was among the best of all the prophets.
  That familiar quote of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

       Justice will rush down like waters and righteousness like a 
     mighty stream. . . .

  Those are Amos's words.
  Amos was the first to propose the concept of a universal God and not 
just some tribal deity. He also wrote that God demanded moral purity, 
not rituals and sacrifices.
  This blunt-speaking moral conscience of his time warns, in Chapter 8, 
verse 11 of the Book of Amos, as if he were speaking to us today:

       The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a 
     famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of thirst for 
     water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.
       And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north 
     even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word 
     of the Lord, and shall not find it.

  ``A famine in the land,'' has anyone more accurately described the 
situation we face in America today? A famine of ``hearing the word of 
the Lord.'' Some will say Amos was just an Old Testament prophet who 
lived 700 years before Christ.
  That is true. So how about one of the most influential historians of 
modern times, Arnold Toynbee, who wrote the acclaimed 12-volume ``A 
Study of History.'' He once declared:

       Of the 22 civilizations that have appeared in history, 19 
     of them have collapsed when they reached the moral state 
     America is in today.

  Toynbee died in 1975, before seeing the worst that was yet to come. 
Yes, Arnold Toynbee saw the famine, ``the famine of hearing the word of 
the Lord,'' whether it is removing a display of the Ten Commandments 
from a courthouse or of a nativity scene from a city square, whether it 
is eliminating prayer in the city schools or eliminating ``under God'' 
in the Pledge of Allegiance, whether it is making a mockery of the 
sacred institution of marriage between a man and a woman, or, yes, 
telecasting around the world made-in-the-USA filth masquerading as 
entertainment.
  The culture of far left America was displayed in a startling way 
during the Super Bowl's now infamous half-time show, a show brought to 
us on behalf of the Value-Les Moonves and the pagan temple of Viacom-
Babylon.
  I asked the question yesterday: How many of you have ever run over a 
skunk with your car? I know the President has, somewhere over there 
around Frog Hollow. I have, many times. I can tell you that the stink 
stays around for a long time. You can take the car through a carwash 
and it is still there. So the scent of this event will long linger in 
the nostrils of America.
  I am not talking just about an exposed mammary gland with a pull-tab 
attached to it. Really, no one should have been too surprised with 
that. Wouldn't you expect a bumping, humping, trashy routine entitled 
``I'm Going To Get You Naked'' to end that way?
  Does any responsible adult ever listen to the words of this rap-crap? 
I would quote you some of it, but the Sergeant at Arms would throw me 
out of this Chamber, as well he should.
  Then there was that prancing, dancing, strutting, rutting guy, 
evidently suffering from jock itch because he kept yelling and grabbing 
his crotch. But, then, maybe there is a culture of crotch grabbing in 
this country I don't know about. But as bad as all that was, the thing 
that yanked my chain the hardest was seeing this ignoramus with his 
pointed head stuck up through a hole he had cut in the flag of the 
United States of America, screaming about having ``a bottle of scotch 
and watching lots of crotch.''
  Think about that. This is the same flag to which we pledge 
allegiance. This is the same flag that is draped over coffins of dead 
young uniformed warriors, killed while protecting Kid Crock's boney 
butt. He should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of this country 
on a rail. You talk about a good reality show? That would be one.
  The desire and will of this Congress to meaningfully do anything 
about any of these so-called social issues is nonexistent and 
embarrassingly disgraceful. The American people are waiting and growing 
impatient with us. They want something done.
  I am pleased to be a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 26, along with Senator 
Allard and others, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States relating to marriage; and S. 1558, the Liberties 
Restoration Act, which declares religious liberty rights in several 
ways, including the Pledge of Allegiance and the display of the Ten 
Commandments.
  Today, I join Senator Shelby and others with the Constitution 
Restoration Act of 2004 that limits the jurisdiction of Federal courts 
in certain ways.
  In doing so, I stand shoulder to shoulder, not only with my Senate 
cosponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, but more importantly 
with our Founding Fathers in the conception of religious liberty and 
the terribly wrong direction our modern judiciary has taken us.
  Everyone today seems to think the U.S. Constitution expressly 
provides for separation of church and state. I guess you could ask any 
10 people if

[[Page S1272]]

that is not so and I will bet you most of them will say, well, sure 
that is so. And some would point out that is in the First Amendment.
  Wrong. Read it. It says:

       Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  Where is the word ``separate''? Where are the words ``church'' and 
``state''? They are not there; never have been, never intended to be. 
Read the Congressional Record during the 4-month period in 1789 when 
the amendment was being framed in Congress. Clearly their intent was to 
prohibit a single denomination in exclusion of all others, whether it 
was anglican or Catholic or some other.
  I highly recommend a great book entitled Original Intent by David 
Barton.
  It really gets into how the actual Members of Congress, who drafted 
the First Amendment, expected basic Biblical principles and values to 
be present throughout public life and society, not separate from it.
  It was Alexander Hamilton who pointed out that ``judges should be 
bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and 
point out their duty.''
  ``Bound down.'' That is exactly what is needed to be done. There was 
not a single precedent cited when school prayer was struck down in 
1962.
  These judges who legislate instead of adjudicate do it without being 
responsible to one single solitary voter for their actions.
  Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a brilliant 
young physician from Pennsylvania named Benjamin Rush.
  When Rush was elected to that First Continental Congress, his close 
friend Benjamin Franklin told him ``We need you . . . we have a great 
task before us, assigned to us by Providence.''
  Today, 228 years later there is still a great task before us assigned 
to us by Providence. Our Founding Fathers did not shirk their duty and 
we can do no less.
  By the way, Benjamin Rush was once asked a question that has long 
interested this Senator from Georgia in particular. Dr. Rush was asked, 
Are you a democrat or an aristocrat? And the good doctor answered, ``I 
am neither''. ``I am a Christocrat. I believe He, alone, who created 
and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.''
  That reply of Benjamin Rush is just as true today in the year of our 
Lord 2004 as it was in the year of our Lord 1776.
  So, if I am asked why--with all the pressing problems this Nation 
faces today--why am I pushing these social issues and taking the 
Senate's valuable time, I will answer: Because, it is of the highest 
importance. Yes, there is a deficit to be concerned about in this 
country, a deficit of decency.
  So, as the sand empties through my hourglass at warp speed--and with 
my time running out in this Senate and on this Earth--I feel compelled 
to speak out for I truly believe that at times like this, silence is 
not golden. It is yellow.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to compliment the Senator from 
Georgia, Senator Miller, for his statement and for his outrage over 
some of the decline in morality which was evidenced by not only by 
Super Bowl halftime but also by the Supreme Court decision just made in 
the State of Massachusetts where basically four individuals tried to 
legalize same-sex marriage. It was not a vote of the people.

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