[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 133 (Thursday, November 18, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S11446]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CULTURAL ISSUES IN AMERICA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it seems that several things 
have happened with regard to questions of matters of faith and what 
some would call cultural issues that seem to be upside down in America.
  Just in the last few days, we have seen several ABC stations across 
the country that have had a fear of being fined by the Federal 
Communications Commission for showing the award-winning movie, ``Saving 
Private Ryan,'' because of some of the language that is used in this 
extraordinarily heroic film that is one of the most accurate portrayals 
of the fog and heat of war that has ever been made.
  At the same time, we find that ABC, in its leading up to Monday Night 
Football, has fostered an advertisement to promote one of its nightly 
network prime time shows in which a risque kind of setting is displayed 
for an audience that would inappropriately include children, 
particularly, who are watching at around 6 o'clock in the Pacific time 
zone of this country. On the one hand, ABC stations are taking off the 
air a movie that really has a great deal of portrayal of the strength 
of this country and all of its patriotic values and, at the same time, 
the network, ABC, is then promoting what some would find questionable.
  It seems to me we have lost our sense of balance, our sense of 
direction, that it is entirely upside down as to what we should be 
doing.
  So, too, I have noted in a Washington newspaper today the fact that 
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is urged to defend the Boy Scout 
movement, the title of the headline, and of which critics are pointing 
out that a settlement by the Department of Defense of an ACLU suit back 
a few years ago is going to continue to drive, to force the military to 
cut off all taxpayer support to the Boy Scouts of America which, in 
this case, uses military bases for meetings and events, such as their 
annual Boy Scout jamboree that is held on a Virginia military base.
  It seems that we have it, again, upside down, for if the objection is 
that the Boy Scouts of America have, as part of their oath, an 
allegiance to God, and if that is the reason for the suit, might I 
remind the Members of the Senate that when we took the oath of office, 
it said at the end of the oath, ``so help me God.''
  But isn't it interesting that the U.S. military has taken a position 
in a settlement which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would keep 
the Boy Scouts of America off a military facility when, in fact, every 
military officer in the U.S. military, including this former officer of 
the U.S. Army, took an oath that said the following:

       That I will support and defend the Constitution of the 
     United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that 
     I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I 
     take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or 
     purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully 
     discharge the duties of this office upon which I am about to 
     enter, so help me God.

  That is the part of the oath every U.S. military officer takes, and 
it is the one I took decades ago when I entered as an officer of the 
U.S. Army.
  It seems to me there is a great deal of inconsistency then that the 
U.S. Department of Defense would take a position where every one of its 
officers has sworn to uphold their oath, and at the end of that oath 
state, ``so help me God,'' and yet they are moving to a position to 
knock the Boy Scouts out of being able to use public facilities--in 
this case, military facilities--because they have a similar oath.
  I come back to my opening comments. We have something that is upside 
down. There is not a Senator here who does not passionately believe in 
freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of belief in what 
any person chooses to believe, but are we getting so mixed up that we 
lose sight of what are the accepted ways in which we conduct ourselves 
and the respect we have for one another in our respective beliefs?
  Really, is there anyone who wants to kick the Boy Scouts out of their 
annual jamboree on a Virginia military facility? Of course there isn't.
  In this week that has just passed where we see the ABC network saying 
to some of these stations that we are not going to allow ``Private 
Ryan'' because it has bad words in it, and at the same time promoting a 
commercial that certainly has questionable viewing characteristics for 
young children at the 6 o'clock timeframe on the west coast of this 
country, and where today's news is bringing us to the point at which 
our own Department of Defense is taking a position that ultimately 
would lead to kicking off the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts believe 
in God, then I think this country has gone too far. It is time to stand 
up and speak out about common sense and principles that were set in 
place for this country by its Founding Fathers of a belief in Divine 
Providence and a respect for that belief.

  So what I will be doing is offering a resolution to the Senate today, 
and that resolution will conclude that:

       It is the sense of the United States Senate that the 
     Department of Defense should continue to exercise its 
     longstanding statutory authority to support the activities of 
     the Boy Scouts of America, in particular the periodic 
     national and world Boy Scout jamboree.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Kentucky.

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