[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16396]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    DEFEAT H.R. 2357, ALLOWING CHURCHES TO FUND POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

  (Mr. EDWARDS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EDWARDS. Madam Speaker, the American people need to know that 
there is legislation pending in this House that would turn our churches 
into political campaign organizations. This bill would actually allow 
churches to endorse political candidates and even contribute church 
funds to political campaigns.
  H.R. 2357 is an extraordinarily bad bill. It is a dangerous bill. 
This bill would demean the spiritual mission of our houses of worship 
by turning them into a vehicle for campaign contributions and 
partisanship. If someone wanted to maliciously tear our churches apart, 
I can think of few ways to do it better than to pit church members 
against church members each year as they debate which Federal, State, 
county and local candidates to endorse and how much to contribute to 
them.
  This bill is opposed by numerous religious organizations, including 
the Baptist Joint Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the General 
Board of Church and Society, the United Methodist Church, the Congress 
of National Black Churches, the Interfaith Alliance Foundation and the 
Baptist General Convention of Texas, just to name a few.
  If anyone thinks politicizing churches is a good idea, then they need 
to review the lessons of world history.

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