[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BANNING BOOKS

  (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, a 10-year-old Knoxville, Tennessee child, 
Luke Whitson, and some of his friends chose to read the Bible to each 
other during recesses instead of playing on the jungle gym or kickball. 
Luke's principal was not amused. She put a stop on this terrible 
practice at once and told the students not to bring their Bibles to 
school again.
  Now, we expect principals to protect kids from bullying and ensure a 
healthy learning environment. We do not expect them to dictate issues 
of faith or, worse, mandate a faith-free environment. However, this 
principal is a ground soldier in a national campaign to remove faith, 
even voluntary expressions of it, from publicly funded programs and 
facilities.
  School children, all people, should have the right to read freely in 
their own free time, whether it is during recess at school or in the 
break room during lunch at work.
  Our government buys and provides copies of the Koran and prayer rugs 
to terrorist prisoners at Gitmo. We expect our soldiers to honor a 
terrorist's right to worship freely, but will we stand for the right of 
an American child to do so as well? Sounds like somebody is paranoid.

                          ____________________