[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1363-1365]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, there is an old political axiom that is 
attributed to Thomas Jefferson, more recently to Gerald Ford, that 
says: A government that is big enough to give you everything you want 
is also big enough to take it all away.
  Those words took on a whole new meaning this last week when we found 
out the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, Kathleen

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Sebelius, was issuing new regulations with regard to the health care 
act that passed last year that would apply to religious-affiliated 
universities, charities, and hospitals.
  I think we have to remember exactly why it was that many of our 
forefathers came to this country in the first place. They came, in many 
cases, because they were trying to get away from religious persecution 
in their homelands. So they came to the United States with the desire 
to start anew and to assert that in this new government they formed 
that they would protect freedoms, basic freedoms, such as religious 
liberty.
  So in the Declaration of Independence they said:

       We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
     created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
     certain unalienable Rights, that among these are [the rights 
     to] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.--[In order] 
     to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, 
     deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

  So that was a foundational principle of our democracy, and it was 
enshrined, when they wrote the Constitution, in the first amendment of 
the Bill of Rights, when they said:

       Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .

  It was the very first right they enshrined in the Bill of Rights in 
the Constitution of the United States. That was the weight they 
attached to the important issue of religious liberty, and it was 
consistent with the statement in the Declaration of Independence, where 
it says that those rights are endowed by our Creator. They are not 
given to us by a State. They are not given to us by government. They 
are something that is endowed by our Creator. The government is here to 
protect those rights.
  So when this issue popped up on many people's radar screen--and, of 
course, it has been percolating out there for quite a while, but there 
had been an opportunity to weigh in and to provide comments, with the 
hope that the Department of Health and Human Services would come to the 
right conclusion and exempt religious-affiliated schools, hospitals, 
and charities--when that was not going to be the case and they were 
going to require these very organizations to do something that violated 
their consciences and violated the teachings and the practices of their 
faith, many people across this country--we have all heard from them--
got very engaged on this issue.
  It seems to me, at least, there is a very simple answer to this; that 
is, the administration could go back and revisit this issue and more 
broadly make this exemption not just for churches--which is where it is 
today--but also for church schools, church hospitals, church 
universities.
  It was interesting, Tuesday morning the minority leader in the 
Senate, Senator McConnell, was out here talking about this issue, and 
he mentioned:

       One out of six patients in America is treated at a Catholic 
     hospital. Catholic Charities is the largest private provider 
     of social services to poor children, families, and 
     individuals in America. The Catholic Church runs the largest 
     network of private schools in the country.

  He goes on to say:

       These institutions have thrived because they have been 
     allowed to freely pursue their religious convictions in a 
     country that, until now, respected their constitutional right 
     to do so.

  He went on to say in that statement:

       If the rights of some are not protected, the rights of all 
     are in danger.

  I think what has many of the churches across this country and many of 
the universities and many of the hospitals concerned about is that this 
is going to become a finalized regulation.
  The proponents of the regulation are saying there is a year to comply 
with it. I would submit to you that asking people in this country to 
check their principles at the door not now but a year from now is not 
making any kind of an accommodation.
  This needs to be reversed. This is clearly a violation of religious 
liberty, the protection and right we have in the first amendment of our 
Constitution in our Bill of Rights, and I hope the administration will 
do the right thing and acknowledge that they have made a mistake, that 
they have gone too far, that they have overreached, that they have 
treaded in an area they should not tread and make this right. The way 
to make this right is to reverse this decision.
  Some have argued: What is that going to mean? Does that mean people 
in this country are not going to have access to contraceptive services? 
The answer to that is absolutely not. Contraception would be widely 
available. It is just that religious-affiliated employers would not be 
forced to fund this coverage which violates the tenants of their faith. 
It does not have anything to do with contraception. It does not have 
anything to do with that issue at all. What it has to do with is the 
issue of religious liberty and whether we are going to respect that or 
are we going to allow that to be eroded, and who knows where this goes 
next.
  The other point I would make is, this is also, I think, an example of 
what happens when you get a government that is so big it can give you 
everything you want but also big enough to take it all away. There are 
a lot of people who, when this was debated, when the affordable care 
act was debated, argued--myself included--this would lead to government 
running more of our lives, making more decisions, intruding more, 
having more control, and making decisions with regard to people's 
health care.
  I would submit this is an example--and perhaps example No. 1--of that 
very fact. What we are seeing now is, the affordable care act--as it 
gets implemented, we are giving more and more power to the Federal 
Government, and when we do that, when big government gets bigger and 
bigger, it has more latitude when it comes to running over the rights 
of ordinary Americans. This is a perfect example of that.
  I could go down the list of other regulations. I have come down to 
the floor many times to talk about regulatory overreach, excessive 
regulations that go way beyond common sense, that do not deal with 
issues of public health and safety but are simply regulations for 
regulation's sake.
  People have heard me come down and talk about the Department of 
Labor's efforts now to regulate the young people who work on family 
farms and ranches and the overly proscriptive way in which they are 
trying to keep young people from performing duties they learned growing 
up that they are trained to do, that contribute to the overall success 
and prosperity of family farms and ranches.
  The Department of Labor's proposal right now would restrict young 
people from working at elevations that are more than 6 feet, from 
working with farm animals that are more than 6 months old, from working 
around grain elevators or stockyards or operating certain kinds of 
equipment, many pieces of equipment, types of equipment that are fairly 
standard on a farming operation. It strikes at the very heart of what 
makes a family farm and ranch operation tick. It is an assault on the 
heartland of this country and the culture and values that have helped 
shape it and make it great.
  So this issue of regulatory overreach and big government is an issue 
that I think is symbolized by this current debate. What we are having 
is a debate about the reach of government to where they can start 
coming up with regulations under the new health care law that clearly 
violate the religious liberty protections that are afforded for people 
in this country under the first amendment and which I think our 
Founders, if they were around today, would find incredibly offensive.
  This is an affront, an assault on these very liberties. It is an 
assault on our Bill of Rights, our Constitution. It is something the 
administration should walk back from and make right. They can do that 
very simply by reversing this or widening or broadening this exemption 
to cover religious-affiliated schools, universities and charities. And 
they could do that right now.
  I would hope that would be the case. If it is not, there is 
legislation that has been proposed here. A number of my colleagues have 
already filed bills. In fact, Senator Blunt was down here earlier today 
and asked to call up an

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amendment that would address this issue. It was objected to on the 
grounds that it is not related to the underlying bill, the highway 
bill. Well, if it is not related to the highway bill, then let's 
provide an opportunity for Congress to weigh in on this. I can tell you 
one thing, the American people are weighing in on this. This Congress 
of the United States, as their representatives, needs to stand for the 
American people and, more importantly, needs to defend the Constitution 
of the United States. If the administration is going to take this step, 
and if the administration is not going to walk back from this, this 
Congress of the United States needs to be heard.
  There will be numerous attempts until that opportunity is presented 
by my colleagues and me to make sure this wrong is fixed, is corrected, 
and that the religious liberties for which our Founders came to this 
country and for which so many have fought and died over the years to 
defend are protected, and those rights that are enshrined in our 
Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and our Bill of Rights 
are protected for the American people.
  I yield the floor.

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