[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 17 (Thursday, February 2, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H436-H438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ASSAULT ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's wonderful to hear so many of not just
colleagues but friends here on the floor discussing what is so
important to this Nation--responsibility. And if you want to talk
fiscal responsibility, it would certainly seem that the first place to
start is with the repeal of ObamaCare. If you want to talk about
freedom individually, once again, the best place to start is with
repeal of ObamaCare.
There are so many ways the Federal Government has been encroaching
into individual liberties and individual freedoms. It begins to get
quite scary that we are encroaching on the very things that our
original Founders were willing to fight and die for to ensure that we
had the freedoms to do, that we would have the freedoms to avoid doing
damage to our conscience.
It's so ironic that so many came to this Nation in its earliest days,
and then through its history, seeking relief from persecution as
Christians. So many groups came here believing that this could be a
place, a promised land of sorts, where freedom could be experienced
greater than anywhere else in the world. And that dream has been
realized.
For far too long in our Nation's history, it was not extended to all
men and women. Race and gender were problems. There were problems for
some because there was racial and gender bias. But no one in those days
ever anticipated we would get to the point in America where we are
today, where people of faith who believe with all their heart that
certain practices are just wrong in God's eyes would be forced by their
government to commit those acts of wrong.
We know that the President of Notre Dame University, back in 2009,
endured a great deal of heat when he brought a man who had fought so
hard in Illinois to allow late-term abortions, a man who had fought to
prevent people of conscience from being allowed to be counseled on
exactly what they would be doing. There were all kinds of efforts in
Illinois to deal with the issue of abortion. And he's now President. So
there were some that believed that bringing that individual to a
Catholic university like Notre Dame and giving an honorary degree and
bestowing this honor upon him was not a good idea. Yet the President
took a great deal of chance.
Sarah Palin points this out in an op-ed, little piece that she wrote
Tuesday, when she said:
Consider Catholicism's most prominent academic leader, the
Reverend John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame. Jenkins took
a serious risk in sponsoring Obama's 2009 honorary degree and
commencement address--which promised a ``sensible'' approach
to the conscience clause. Jenkins now complains, ``This is
not the kind of `sensible' approach the President had in mind
when he spoke here.''
As Sarah Palin notes, ``Obama has made Jenkins--and other progressive
Catholic allies--look easily duped,'' because this administration
appears to want to wage war on Catholic Christian belief.
It's amazing that someone would take those kinds of positions that
the administration currently is, basically a war on religious freedom
for Christians.
There is an editorial posted by Mike Brownfield today, entitled,
``Morning Bell: ObamaCare's Latest Victim is Religious Freedom.'' It
says:
It has not even been 2 years since ObamaCare was enacted,
and already the President's health care law has taken another
victim--the religious freedoms Americans hold dear, as
reflected by the First Amendment.
The Obama administration recently reaffirmed a rule under
ObamaCare that requires many religious employers to provide
health care coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptive
methods, sterilization procedures, and related education and
counseling. On the grounds that certain FDA-approved
contraceptive methods can sometimes ``cause the demise of
embryos both after and before uterine implantation,'' many
groups also believe that the rule forces them to cover
abortion.
As the article points out, it's not just Catholics affected by the
rule. Leaders from other faith traditions have expressed their concern.
This is deeply troubling.
Another article here from The Washington Post, entitled, ``Obama
Plays His Catholic Allies for Fools,'' by Michael Gerson, published
January 30. He says:
In politics, the timing is often the message. On January
20--3 days before the annual March for Life--the Obama
administration announced its final decision that Catholic
universities, hospitals, and charities will
[[Page H437]]
be compelled to pay for health insurance that covers
sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients.
It was bad enough that ObamaCare was going to take away individual
freedoms regarding health care. We can take care of those who cannot
take care of themselves. But we should not do, as a government, what
has been done for far too long--provide incentives for people not to
reach their potential, provide incentives for people, in effect, to
take the life of an unborn, to make it easier to do that.
As so many have pointed out, if a government can order any
individual, all individuals in the country, to purchase a particular
product, including health care insurance, there really isn't anything
the Federal Government cannot order them to do or to purchase.
{time} 2020
And we're seeing that play out now, not merely in the area of just
health insurance, but going deeper than that, more problematic, even
theological, that the Federal Government can order you not to follow
your religious beliefs.
So it's really quite shocking how far we've come. Now, those of us
that study the teachings of Jesus know that He told Christians you will
suffer for My sake. I didn't deserve to be born in America. I go to
places like Afghanistan and Iraq and places where there's so much
heartache, places around the world where you see people--in Africa, the
places that I've seen so much heartache, so much suffering. We didn't
deserve to be born here, but by the grace of God we were. And though we
were told by Jesus you will suffer for My sake, for whatever reason we
were allowed to grow up free, free from suffering on account of
Christian beliefs.
This bubble in time and space that was allowed for generation after
generation to be able to follow religious beliefs as Christians without
persecution, that time has changed. Now it would seem that as people
yell ``haters'' at Christians, throw things at Christians, fuss on the
nightly news how Christians are haters and want everybody to go to hell
if they don't believe just like them--what a terrible misinterpretation
of Christian faith and beliefs.
An article from The Wall Street Journal talking about the
contraception rule, talking about the discussions about it among the
political candidates.
People need to understand the Christian faith is under assault, and
this administration has stepped up the ante in that assault. And if
people, whether they're Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever faith--
Hindu, Buddhists, Atheists--once you see a Federal Government telling
Christians you cannot practice what you believe with your whole heart
spiritually, you could be next. This ought to stir up not merely
Christians. It ought to stir up people of all kinds of faith. Because,
again, a Federal Government that can tell you to buy one product can
tell you to buy any others if it has that much power. A Federal
Government that tells Christians they cannot actually practice their
religious beliefs can tell other religions the same thing.
We've just about come 360. This gift we've been given, we've been
blessed with more freedoms in this country than any country in the
history of the world. It doesn't take all that much study of world
history to see that. It doesn't take all that much traveling around the
world to see that. As I've traveled the world, going back to my days as
an exchange student in 1973 to the Soviet Union, you develop a love for
people all over the world. It's ironic when people call you a xenophobe
and have no idea how many people you love with all your heart--Africa,
Asia, Europe, around the world, different places.
And as one West African told me when I was visiting there, You have
to understand, we were so excited when you elected a black President,
but now we've seen America growing weak. And you must let the people in
Washington know that unless America stays strong, we will suffer.
You're our protectors. Without you staying strong, we don't have hope
of having the freedoms we have right now. America's strength and
America's standing for freedom and liberty don't just affect the people
in America.
I jotted some notes inspired by a pastor's comments decades ago. It
says: Start thinking about what we have seen in this country. First
they said you can't have prayer in school, but most people didn't speak
out because they would just pray somewhere else. Then they said you
couldn't publicly post the Ten Commandments because people might be
tempted to read them; and if they read them, they might be tempted to
follow them and live moral lives. But most people didn't speak out
because they knew where to find the Ten Commandments if they decided
they wanted to have that kind of moral code.
They said you couldn't use a cross for a headstone, even for soldiers
who died in the Christian faith in Jesus Christ, believing what Jesus
said that ``greater love hath no one than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends.'' But not enough people have spoken out, because
the soldiers are gone and they can't respond, so maybe it doesn't
really matter.
I had a judge tell students, recent history, they could not have the
freedom of speech to say what was in their hearts if it included
horrible verboten words like prayer, invocation, benediction, but worst
of all, God, prayer, amen, bow our heads, join in prayer. And most
people didn't speak out because that was somewhere else, a judge
somewhere else, not ours. Some judges said you couldn't say God in the
pledge in a public place. It seems more judges have said that in more
recent history. Fortunately, it was struck down, but they're still
saying it. And not enough people are speaking out because it's some
other judge. Maybe an appellate court will strike it down. I hope so.
Now we're being told by some if you want to hire someone, unless
you're hiring a minister, you can't hire someone with the same
religious spiritual faith that you have. Not enough people speaking out
because they think surely that won't apply to me, at least not for a
while. We're being told if you know in your heart that killing the most
innocent among us, the infant unborn, if you believe that's killing,
it's murder, it's wrong, well, we're the Federal Government and you
have to forget your religious beliefs. We're going to tell you what you
can or can't believe and tell you what you can or can't do. You have to
go ahead and pay, in tax money or in health insurance money, for
someone else to kill an unborn child.
{time} 2030
And we have hospitals, doctors, nurses, health care providers being
told, you may know in your Christian heart that it's wrong personally
to participate in the taking of an innocent life, like an infant
unborn, but if you want to stay in the health care business you're
probably going to have do it anyway. We're the Federal Government, and
we'll dictate not only what you may believe or not believe, but what
you may put into practice and not put into practice.
And there are some in our government telling military chaplains, even
priests, preachers, you may believe in your spirit, in your heart, in
your soul that marriage is between a man and a woman, that Nature's God
intended the perfect biological fit to produce a combination of a sperm
and an egg. And some want to tell them you've got to set aside your
religious beliefs and do what we, the Federal Government tell you, and
marry whoever we tell you to marry.
You believe Romans 1? Forget it. Tear it out of your Bible because
we're the Federal Government. We have a right to tell you what you can
or can't believe.
Some say it's okay to force Catholics to violate their Christian
consciences and their religious beliefs because our Federal Government
has the power to tell them what to do. Not enough people are crying
out. I guess they figure, well, I'm not really Catholic, or maybe I'm
Catholic but surely they wouldn't try to tell me what to do in
violation of my Christian spiritual beliefs.
But if the government can order, with the full power of Federal law
enforcement, anyone to violate their Christian beliefs, we have come
full circle. And the prayers of generations, the work of churches
throughout our history--first, to even have a revolution based on
freedom, based on the liberty that they knew God gave us, where over a
third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence weren't
[[Page H438]]
just Christians, they were ordained Christian ministers. But they
believed in freedom so strongly that they were willing to fight and die
for the spiritual freedom of all people in this country.
And a Constitution was put together and followed by a Bill of Rights,
and it said what it meant, but it took a long time for it to be applied
across racial bounds. It should have been clear. It's not a living,
breathing document, but it says what it means, and it means that all
people should have those rights under the Bill of Rights, that we were
all created equal in God's eyes. The Founders believed that.
The churches were the heart and soul of the abolitionist movement to
do away with that horrible evil called slavery. People like John Quincy
Adams, 16, 17 years down the hall, Statuary Hall, after he was defeated
for a second term as President, beseeching, preaching against the evils
of slavery, inspired by what he knew from William Wilberforce as a
Christian in the United Kingdom doing the same thing before him.
Abraham Lincoln, inspired by that overlapping time with John Quincy
Adams, down the hall, because of his Christian beliefs and faith. If
anybody doubts his belief, what motivated that man, go read the second
inaugural address on the inside of the north wall of the Lincoln
Memorial, as he tried to make sense, as a Christian, spiritually, about
all the injustice and wrongs and death and suffering in America.
The movement for women's equality involved women of great faith. The
civil rights movement, the greatest saint of the movement was a man who
was an ordained Christian minister, who knew in his heart what Jesus
had done for him, and he wanted all people to have liberty equally
together, and be judged by the content of their character, not the
color of their skin.
And now, it appears, war is being waged like never before on people
of biblical Christian beliefs. You wonder what some of the Founders had
to say. Samuel Adams was one of the strongest Christians alive during
the Revolution. He was inspirational.
``How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning
of words!'' Samuel Adams, that devout, strong Christian said, his
wonderful quote inspired by his faith.
And he said:
If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of
servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us
in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down
and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains sit lightly
upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our
countrymen.
These are people of faith who believed in liberty that started this
place. And to have courts saying you can't say the word ``God'' in
invocation, benediction--we start every day with a prayer in this
Chamber, and have for centuries.
But we go back and finish with this. The speech of Benjamin Franklin
that we have from his own handwriting. So what he said, 1787, late
June, 1787, when nearly 5 weeks had gone by and they'd accomplished
virtually nothing, and he pointed out that they had accomplished
virtually nothing, that they had more ``nos'' than ``ayes'' on
virtually every vote.
And he went on to say:
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in
the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to
distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened,
Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly
applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our
understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Great
Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer
in this room.
That was Independence Hall. This great, brilliant man, who most of us
were taught was a Deist, went on to say:
Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously
answered.
That's not a Deist.
All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have
observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in
our favor.
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the
more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs
in the affairs of men.
Now, the judges in this country, there are those who would say, he
shouldn't be able to give that speech. He just mentioned the ``G''
word. Yet, it was what inspired people, these kind of speeches.
He said:
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His
notice, is it possible an empire could rise without His aid?
We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that
``except the Lord build the House, they labour in vain that
build it.'' I also firmly believe, without His concurring
aid, we shall succeed in our political building no better
than the Builders of Babel: We shall be confounded by our
local partial interests and we ourselves shall become a
byword down through the ages.
He went on to say he believed they should start every day with
prayer.
He was followed by Randolph from Virginia, who basically pointed out
that here we are at the end of June, we are about to celebrate our
anniversary, let's all go to church together, hear a sermon together,
which they did, the reformed Calvinist Lutheran Church. They all went
to church and heard a sermon together. They came back in a new spirit,
and gave us the Constitution, and gave us the Bill of Rights after
that.
How in the world can a Federal Government that came from those roots
begin to declare war on Christians, and Catholic Christians now?
Beware, beware. The Federal Government that can declare war on Catholic
Christian faith may be after your faith next.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________