[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4288]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TEN COMMANDMENTS DEFENSE ACT

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, if we look at the wall around us, we see 
medallions of famous law givers. We see profiles of Hammurabi, 
Napoleon, and Madison. But dead center facing forward, full face, is 
the greatest of all law givers, Moses. Moses, who received the Ten 
Commandments engraved on two tablets, the 10 laws that form the legal 
and moral foundations of Western Civilization itself.
  Back home in Chester County, Pennsylvania, we also honor the Ten 
Commandments; and for over 80 years, the plaque listing the Ten 
Commandments has hung on the outside wall of our county courthouse. But 
now a Federal judge wants the plaque removed. He says it violates the 
separation of church and state. I have read the Constitution. I have 
never seen anything about a ban on the Ten Commandments in the 
Constitution.
  James Madison, the author of the first amendment, which guarantees 
freedom of religion, said, ``We have staked the future of all our 
political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to 
govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according 
to the Ten Commandments of God.''
  Mr. Speaker, we should pass the Ten Commandments Defense Act.

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