[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 163 (Wednesday, October 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5849-S5851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SASSE:
  S.J. Res. 58. A joint resolution expressing support for freedom of 
conscience; read the first time.
  Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to ask each and 
every Member of Congress to answer this simple question: Is it right 
for the U.S. Federal Government to get into the business of policing 
Muslims', Jews', and Christians' religious beliefs, about whether or 
not they are acceptable? Is it the business of the Federal Government 
of the United States to determine true and false religion?
  Last week, a former Member of Congress now running for President, 
didn't blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious 
institutions, colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service 
organizations of their tax-exempt status if they don't agree with his 
political positions.
  That is a pretty major departure from what America is and what we 
usually talk about in this body. So we should pause, and we should call 
that what it is. That is extreme intolerance, it is extreme bigotry, 
and it is profoundly un-American.
  The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole 
point of the First Amendment is that, no matter who you love and no 
matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone--everyone--
is created with dignity. This is a fundamental American tenet. It is 
why this country was founded.
  Because we are all created with dignity, none of us has the right to 
dictate the conscience commitments of other people. The freedom of 
conscience is a fundamental American belief, and, thankfully, 
politicians have no business policing that.
  At the end of the day, there are really just two kinds of societies. 
There are societies that are about force and power, and there are 
societies that are about persuasion, about assembly, and about love.
  For more than 230 years, we have decided in this country that we are 
the latter. We are a community of persuasion, not primarily a community 
of power and force.
  In America, we don't think the center of life is defined by 
government. We think the frame of life is defined by government.
  Abraham Lincoln often, sort of apocryphally summarizing George 
Washington, used to talk about the silver frame and the golden apple. 
In America, the government is just the silver

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frame. It is the structure that defines the framework for the order of 
liberty so that the golden apple--the good, the true, and the 
beautiful, the things that you love and that you want to build--you go 
do by persuading people to join with you in a cause. Government doesn't 
define the center.
  Washington, DC, is not the center of American life. Washington, DC, 
is supposed to be a servant community that exists to maintain a 
framework for the order of liberty and guards us against enemies, 
foreign and domestic, so that your household and your neighborhood and 
your place of worship can be the center of life.
  We are not Chinese Communists who take Uighurs and throw them into 
camps. We are not Russian oligarchs who tell journalists what they can 
and can't write. We are not Venezuelan strongmen who beat the hell out 
of protesters. We are Americans. And in America, we disagree about many 
things. We disagree profoundly and vigorously, but then we come 
together and create a system where we work out our differences not with 
fists but with words. We work out our differences with civility and 
tolerance and respect and persuasion.
  All of this starts with the First Amendment. The five freedoms of the 
First Amendment--religion, speech, press, assembly, and protest--define 
who we are as a people and what we believe in common. And guess what. 
You can't separate these five. These five freedoms are all in the same 
amendment for a reason--because if one of them falls, they all fall. 
They stand or fall together, and you are a hypocrite if you pat 
yourself on the back for defending one of these five freedoms and then 
the next day, when another one is unpopular, say: Well, we don't need 
that one; we can throw it overboard. The five freedoms are 
interconnected and are interdependent, and they are all in that same 
amendment, the First Amendment, for a reason.
  These are the rights of conscience that belong together, and they 
cannot be taken or policed by government. That means that if a Texas 
politician pandering for a sound bite decides to make a boldfaced 
threat against Muslims and Jews and Christians--all Americans from 
every faith and every walk of life--we have an obligation to come 
together and defend our freedoms, so we should do that.
  That is what I am on the floor here today to do. I am introducing a 
simple resolution today that will give every Member of the Congress--
the House and Senate--the opportunity to tell our constituents whether 
we still believe in the First Amendment. It is an opportunity to show 
the American people that bigotry against religion in the name of 
partisan politics is not permitted in our system of government. This 
isn't a Republican or a Democratic premise; this is an American idea, 
that we condemn politicians who say they are going to police other 
people's religious beliefs. Congress doesn't target or punish 
organizations that are exercising constitutionally protected rights.
  This really shouldn't be complicated. Government doesn't rifle 
through your pastor's or your rabbi's sermon notes. Government doesn't 
tell your clerics what they can or can't say. Government doesn't tell 
your religious leaders how they will perform their services. Government 
doesn't tell you where or when you will worship. Government doesn't 
teach our kids how they are to pray. Government doesn't lecture you on 
Heaven and Hell. Government's job is not to define true and false 
religion. That is something much closer to the center of the frame, the 
golden apple. The silver frame is the humble job we have to do in 
public life, which is to maintain a framework for ordered liberty so 
that Americans, in their neighborhoods and over dinner tables, can try 
to persuade each other how to worship and what to believe by arguments, 
not by fists and not by the police.
  Government doesn't get to do any of that in this country because we 
recognize that government is not God. Americans reject the divine right 
of Kings, and we reject the infallibility of politics.
  Government doesn't try to make an example of your church or your 
synagogue or your mosque because some politician decided your views 
were out of favor. Your religious organization doesn't get taxed 
differently because a politician running for office decides to disagree 
with one of your beliefs. Whatever faith you are from in America, 
whatever party you are in, we believe in America that all 225 million 
of us are created equal, and we believe that whether your faith is 
traditional or progressive, it is yours, and it is between you and your 
religious community and your God. It is not the domain of politicians.
  Government can't force you out of the public square because of the 
faith you hold--at least that is what we have always believed in the 
past. It is what we believed for more than 200 years. We are not 
perfect, of course. We have fallen short of that idealism time and 
again. That doesn't mean the ideas of the American founding in the 
First Amendment are wrong; it means that our ideals need to be strived 
for yet again and reaffirmed.
  I want to give every Member of Congress the opportunity in the coming 
weeks to do just that. The resolution I am introducing today ought to 
get a vote so House and Senate Members can be on record for our 
constituents about whether we affirm the First Amendment and in 
particular the free exercise of religion and the free assembly clause. 
I am going to read it for everyone's benefit. It is pretty short. This 
is the resolution being submitted:

       Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in 
     part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored 
     religious persecution;
       Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United 
     States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to 
     the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the 
     First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that 
     ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 
     abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the 
     right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition 
     the Government for a redress of grievances'';
       Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious 
     organizations have played a central and invaluable role in 
     life in the United States; and
       Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious 
     institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for 
     those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled, That--
       (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in 
     the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
     remain central to the experiment of the United States in 
     republican self-government under the Constitution of the 
     United States;
       (2) government should not be in the business of dictating 
     what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and
       (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt 
     of the protections of the Constitution of the United States 
     and the laws of the United States, including an exemption 
     from taxation, on the public policy positions of an 
     organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the 
     First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

  I don't care what some nitwit said on CNN last week to satisfy his 
fringy base and try to get a sound bite in a Presidential debate. The 
American people ought to know that this body stands for the historic 
First Amendment. That is what we all took an oath to uphold and to 
defend, and that is what we ought to vote to affirm again. Let's do it.

                              S.J. Res. 58

       Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in 
     part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored 
     religious persecution;
       Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United 
     States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to 
     the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the 
     First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that 
     ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 
     abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the 
     right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition 
     the Government for a redress of grievances'';
       Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious 
     organizations have played a central and invaluable role in 
     life in the United States; and
       Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious 
     institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for 
     those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That--
       (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in 
     the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
     remain central to the experiment of the United States in 
     republican self-government under the Constitution of the 
     United States;

[[Page S5851]]

       (2) government should not be in the business of dictating 
     what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and
       (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt 
     of the protections of the Constitution of the United States 
     and the laws of the United States, including an exemption 
     from taxation, on the public policy positions of an 
     organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the 
     First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

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