[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21333]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 BANNING EFFORTS OF FAITH-BASED GROUPS

  (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, the left is howling about how hurricane 
relief money is being spent. They want to stop money from going to 
certain groups. The government has offered to help defray the cost that 
faith-based groups have incurred in helping victims of the hurricanes. 
Many have been able to cover costs through donations of goods, money, 
and volunteers. But in many cases, these groups help more people than 
they were capable of helping because the government asked them to.
  But to serve an extremist agenda, some have called on the government 
to ban faith-based groups from the publicly funded relief effort. Their 
call would shut out the poor in churches and synagogues and mosques 
simply to suit their erroneous reading of the Constitution and to pad 
their fundraising numbers.
  First, they want to keep poor kids in big cities from going to good 
schools with scholarship vouchers, now they want to stop aid from going 
to the poor. So much for compassion.

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