[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14044-14045]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            RESTORE PRAYER AND BIBLE READING TO THE SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, one of my constituents, Ernest Chase, of 
Englewood, Tennessee, has just sent me a cartoon showing two students 
standing outside of Columbine High School.
  The drawing shows a young girl saying, ``Why didn't God stop the 
shooting?'' A young boy then replies, ``How could he? He's not allowed 
in school anymore.''
  I know that God is everywhere and omnipresent. So I realize the 
cartoon is not theologically correct. However, it does make a very 
important point.
  I know that this Congress will not put prayer and Bible reading back 
in the schools, but I believe we should. The problems of our children 
and our schools have grown much worse since we took prayer and Bible 
reading out.
  I know that when we had prayer and Bible reading in the schools, most 
kids did not pay attention and were probably thinking about other 
things. But one could never know which young people had come to school 
hurting that morning, due to a family squabble, a health problem, loss 
of a loved one, or something else.
  One could never know when a student who was hurting inside might be 
comforted or helped, even if in a small way, by some prayer or some 
Bible verse.
  I know that some people say that prayer and Bible reading are the 
responsibilities of the family and the home, and I agree with that. But 
I also think it is a responsibility of the schools and society to teach 
and encourage good morals and values and ethics. As a popular phrase 
today says, character counts, and this should be taught in the schools.
  George Washington once said, ``You cannot have good government 
without morality. You cannot have morality without religion; and you 
cannot have religion without God.''
  We open up every session of this House and the Senate with prayer, 
and this has never been a problem. We have Catholic Priests, Protestant 
Ministers, Jewish Rabbis, and others lead us in prayer, and I do not 
think there has ever been a complaint. But we do not allow our schools 
to have the same privilege.
  Some people say or think we cannot have prayer in public schools 
because one cannot mix church and State. Well, these words and even 
this idea are not mentioned in the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers 
came here to get freedom of religion, not freedom from religion; and 
there is a big, big difference.
  In 1952, our U.S. Supreme Court said there is ``no constitutional 
requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to 
religion and throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective 
scope of religious influence.'' Let me repeat that. The U.S. Supreme 
Court, in 1952, in Zorach v. Clauson said there is ``no constitutional 
requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to 
religion and throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective 
scope of religious influence.'' Yet, this is exactly what government 
has done over the last 35 or 40 years.
  William Raspberry, the great columnist of the Washington Post, wrote 
a few years ago, ``Is it not just possible that anti-religious bias, 
masquerading as religious neutrality, has cost us far more than we have 
been willing to acknowledge?''
  That is such a good question. Let me repeat it. William Raspberry 
said, ``Is it not just possible that anti-religious bias, masquerading 
as religious neutrality, has cost us far more than we have been willing 
to acknowledge?''
  He then told of something that Dennis Prager, a Jewish talk show 
host, once said on one of his shows. He said, ``if you were walking 
down the street of one of our Nation's largest cities late one night, 
in a high crime area, and you heard footsteps approaching rapidly from 
behind, and you turned and saw four well-built young men coming toward 
you, would you not feel relieved to learn that these young men were 
coming home from a Bible study.''
  Today, most public high schools believe they cannot even allow 
nondenominational prayers at high school graduations.
  We have come too far down the wrong road, and we need to do better, 
much better for the sake of our children. Prayer and Bible reading 
helped many children and never hurt anyone. It sent a message, even to 
young people who may not have been helped at the time, that there was a 
higher power to turn to when times got tough, as they do for all of us.
  To those who say we should not try to impose morality on others, 
listen to the words of Judge Robert Bork in his book ``Slouching 
Towards Gomorrah'': ``Modern liberals try to frighten Americans by 
saying that religious conservatives `want to impose their morality on 
others.' That is palpable foolishness. All participants in politics 
want to `impose' on others as much of their morality as possible, and 
no group is more insistent than liberals.''
  If we do not instill good morals and values and ethics of the Bible, 
then we will, by default, be teaching the bad morals found in our 
modern day obscene and violent movies, video games,

[[Page 14045]]

the Internet, and in Godless classrooms.
  We need to restore prayer and Bible reading to the schools of this 
Nation. It certainly would not solve all of our problems, but it would 
help.

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