[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23594-23595]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               IN PURSUIT OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, on November 2, Ohio Democrats took 
our moral values to the polls. For many of us, our faith guided us, 
too, and our final vote for President was far too close to declare us 
or assail us, as some now do, as a State full of evangelical 
fundamentalists. For many of us, moral values are grounded in our 
religious faith. My Lutheran upbringing instructs me, and my fellow 
Christians, in the teachings of Jesus, to read and to follow as best we 
can the words of the Beatitudes, to try to live our lives and practice 
our faiths as Jesus would have wanted us to. For others of us, those 
moral values take the form of a faith in our country's greatness to 
solve our most pressing problems of racial inequality and inaccessible 
health care, the poverty of millions of American children, and the war 
in Iraq.
  For 3 years I have worn a lapel pin depicting a canary in a cage. A 
century ago, miners took a canary into the mines to warn them of toxic 
gases. Miners were forced to provide for their own protection. No mine 
safety laws. No trade unions able to help. No real support from their 
government.
  A baby born 100 years ago had a life expectancy of about 47 years. 
Today, because of public health initiatives, worker safety laws, 
Medicare and Social Security, we live decades longer. Every bit of 
progress in the struggle for economic and social justice, often rooted 
in our Judeo-Christian beliefs, every bit of progress prevailed over 
the opposition of society's most privileged and most powerful.
  Today, those struggles continue. Our fight for seniors who are forced 
to choose between medicine and food and our fight against the large 
pharmaceutical companies' greed is our understanding of the Holy Word. 
Our opposition to tax cuts for America's most privileged adults and 
Head Start cuts afflicting our least privileged children follow from 
the teachings of Christ. Our opposition to the death penalty, George 
Bush approved an execution of a Texan every 2 weeks as Governor, is 
grounded in the Scriptures. And our belief that government programs 
like Medicare and Social Security, not privatized imitations of them, 
should serve all Americans bespeaks a faith in the greatness of our 
country and its ability and willingness to lift up all of God's 
children.

                              {time}  1915

  As we have seen over the last 4 years, Republicans campaign on their 
religious beliefs and on their moral values, mostly opposition to 
abortion and gay marriage; and then they govern for and with their 
corporate allies and contributors.
  On this floor of the House of Representatives, in the light of day, 
we hear much talk about moral values. But in the committee rooms and 
the cloakrooms, choices are made that run counter to the teachings of 
Christ and Mohammed and the Jewish prophets, and fly in the face of the 
values upon which this Nation was founded.
  This Congress hurts families by underfunding Leave No Child Behind 
and college student loans, while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 
among us. This Congress hurts the elderly by defeating legislation to 
bring down the price of prescription drugs and then passing a Medicare 
bill that further enriches the drug industry and insurance companies. 
This Congress hurts God's Earth when it caves to the energy and 
chemical companies. This Congress hurts our communities when it gives 
tax breaks to encourage the largest corporations, most of them big 
contributors to the Bush administration, to outsource our jobs. And 
this Congress hurts our grandchildren when it loads huge burdens of 
debt on future generations.
  Tens of thousands of Ohioans worked feverishly for months to help 
change our Nation's course because of their moral values, because of 
their faith in God, because of their belief in our Nation's history of 
using the Biblical term ``taking care of the least among us.''
  In no way do I question the faith of my political opponents. But I am 
weary of the far right's claim that they are the only ones guided by 
the hand of God. My understanding of the teachings of Christ and my 
religious upbringing call me to walk a different path and to express 
and act upon my

[[Page 23595]]

faith in the cause of social and economic justice.

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