[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2901]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A NATION?

  (Mr. SCHAFFER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, in The Washington Post this morning there 
is an article on the front here talking about California, how the 
California Motor Vehicle Division rescinded a license plate because it 
mentions the Washington Redskins football team. It says that the 
license was offensive. Somebody apparently complained.
  In California, taxpayers support the Motor Vehicle Department and 
therefore a single government-issued license plate depicting a football 
team is offensive and serious and intolerable; but in New York, 
obscuring the image of Mary, the mother of God, with animal feces and 
obscenities, well, that is just art we are told.
  After all, taxpayers are obligated to subsidize art. Those like me 
who are offended by a government attack on our religion, we are told to 
lighten up.
  Never let it be said, Mr. Speaker, that America lacks for vision, 
faith and decisiveness and courage when it comes to football and 
license plates.
  Mr. Speaker, what have we become? Hail Mary, indeed. O, mother of the 
word incarnate, despise not my petition but in thy mercy herein answer 
me. Amen.

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