[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15253-15254]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FREEDOM OF POLITICAL SPEECH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to read a couple of 
statements from Bishop Smith of Trenton, New Jersey. The title of his 
little

[[Page 15254]]

writing is called Bishop Smith calls for Freedom of Political Speech 
for the Catholic Church, and I would like to say that not only the 
Catholic church but the Protestant churches, the synagogues and the 
mosques in this country.
  What I would like to read is: ``At the Respect Life Mass for the 
Diocese on March 27 in St. James Church, Bishop Smith asked why, in our 
presumably democratic country, Catholic churches fear that the Internal 
Revenue Service will punish them if they speak out on politicians' 
positions on issues.''
  He further stated or wrote: ``The First Amendment protects the free 
exercise of religion. Separation of church and state does not mean that 
the Church and its members should not voice or advocate for their 
positions. Separation of church and state is designed to ensure that 
there is no governmentally established religion.''
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say that because whether this would be a 
bishop of a Catholic faith or a Protestant minister or a Jewish rabbi 
or a cleric, they have the same problem. Most people do not know that 
from the beginning of this great Nation until 1954 that there was total 
freedom. They did know that. What they did not know, which is what I 
meant to say, is that in 1954 Lyndon Baines Johnson introduced an 
amendment on a revenue bill going through the Senate that was never 
debated. There were no committee hearings. There was no discussion of 
his amendment. In fact, at the time, the Democrats were the minority 
and the majority leader accepted the Johnson amendment without debate, 
unanimous consent.
  I want to further add that Dr. James Davidson, a sociology professor 
at Purdue University who I have spoken to by telephone a couple of 
years ago, I want to read from some of his research and writing. He 
says, ``The First Amendment speaks of religious freedom; it says 
nothing that would preclude churches from aligning themselves with or 
against candidates for public office . . . The courts also have never 
used Thomas Jefferson's celebrated 1802 metaphor about `a wall of 
separation between church and state' to stifle churches' support of or 
opposition to political candidates.''
  I share that with my colleagues because, just recently, the bishop of 
Colorado Springs, Bishop Sheridan, wrote a pastoral letter, three pages 
which I have and read many times. Never in his pastoral letter did he 
say anything about President Bush or Candidate for the Presidency Kerry 
or about Democrats or Republicans. He just reminded the Catholics in 
his diocese, about 125,000, that the church stands for protecting the 
unborn. They are opposed to stem cell research. It protects the 
elderly.
  So, therefore, in his letter basically what he said was that we, as 
Catholics, we stand for protecting life, and we, as Catholics, should 
think carefully during this next election. But, again, he never said 
the name of any candidate. He never said the name of any party, but 
because he used the word ``pro-life,'' Barry Lynn, the Americans for 
Separation of Church and State, filed a complaint.
  Well, one might say, well, Congressman, how can he file a complaint? 
He did not mention the candidate. He did not mention a party.
  But what the IRS did in the early 1990s, they took the Johnson 
amendment and they expanded it through their rulemaking process, and 
now they have code words. Code words can be ``pro-choice,'' ``pro-
life,'' ``liberal,'' ``conservative,'' ``Democrat'' or ``Republican.''
  This, in my opinion, is not what this great Nation is about. It is 
not what we have men and women who have served this Nation during 
wartime from the beginning of America until today and tomorrow and as 
this war goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet these fine men and 
women that wear the uniform are there to protect freedom, not only to 
help the Iraqi people but freedom for the American people, and yet we 
have a law on the books that prohibits a member of the clergy from 
speaking out on the moral and political issues of the day.
  Now, if this was 1953, Mr. Speaker, I would not even be on the floor, 
because there would be no problem. There was no law. But because of the 
Johnson amendment, we have elements in this country today that are on 
the extreme left that watch what our clergymen are saying about the 
policy and the politics of the day. I believe sincerely if the moral 
values of America are going to stand, then I believe that the freedom 
must ring in the churches and synagogues and the mosques of America, 
that they must have the freedom to speak freely about the issues of the 
day.
  Again, I plan to be on the floor the next two or three nights and 
will continue to talk about this, because, as my colleagues know, 
outside of my office, 422, I have 12 posters. On each poster is about 
60 faces of men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have 
it there for a main reason, to remind the American people that freedom, 
there is a cost, and, therefore, we must, within the House and the 
Senate, do our part to protect the constitutional rights of the 
American people, and that includes those who are spiritual leaders of 
this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I close by asking God to please bless our men and women 
in uniform and their families, and I ask God to please bless America.

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