    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [February 2, 1995]
    [Pages 146-152]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Religious Affairs Journalists
    February 2, 1995

        The President. Well, I'm glad to see you all and welcome you here,
    for many of you, for the first time. As you know, in the State of the
    Union Address I issued a challenge, and as part of my explanation of the
    New Covenant in challenging citizens to be more responsible, to people
    of faith and to religious leaders specifically to help us to deal with
    those problems that we have to deal with person by person and from the
    inside out, to help us to deal with the problems of teen pregnancy and
    out-of-wedlock birth, to help us to deal with the challenges of
    excessive violence, to help us to deal with the things that have to be
    organized and dealt with literally one by one at the grassroots level.
    And while I think we have to be more tolerant of all people, no matter
    what their differences are, we need to be less tolerant of conditions
    that are within our power to change.
        And as you know now, for 2 years, ever since I took this job, I've
    been trying to find ways to galvanize the energies of people of faith to
    work together on a common agenda that nearly all Americans would agree
    on and, at the same time, to try to respect the differences of opinion
    and views. Our administration strongly supported the Religious Freedom
    Restoration Act, and we've worked very hard to implement it in a good
    faith way. And I think an awful lot of people from right across the
    spectrum of religious affiliations in our country would agree that we
    have done that.
        Anyway, if you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer. But the
    other thing I was going to say today--what I said today was that the
    problems our country faces today are quite profound, you know, the fact
    that a rising tide is not lifting all boats; that a lot of people, in
    spite of this remarkable recovery, have not gotten a raise and they're
    more vulnerable with their health care, their pensions; and the fact
    that a lot of people find their values violated and their security
    violated by crime and violence and the breakdown of the social order. It
    would be very hard to assert that there are more profound difficulties
    than the problems of previous days, than the problems that George
    Washington or Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt confronted.
        The difference is that in the information age, which gives us these
    vast new opportunities because the creation of wealth is based on
    knowledge and that these people have access to more knowledge than ever
    before, it's also a great burden because words have greater power today
    than ever before, not only to build up but also to tear down, to divide,
    to destroy, to distract. And therefore, in a very profound sense in the
    modern world, it is more important that people be striving for the kind
    of spiritual presence of mind and peace of mind that will lead you to
    use words to build up and to unify, instead of to divide and tear down.
    And I really do believe that. I think that it's clearly different

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    from any previous time. Words have always been able to wound in letters
    or speeches or whatever. But the omnipresence of information today and
    the fact that we're buried in it, it seems to me, imposes an even
    greater responsibility on people in positions of respect and trust and
    power to use those words more carefully.

    Personal Morality

        Q. An awkward question, sir. The moral crusade elements of the State
    of the Union Address, teenage pregnancy, as an example, sits well,
    except that there are investigations into your own conduct which some
    people say leaves an impression. Is this interfering with your ability
    to lead that type of crusade?
        The President. Not in my own mind. That's up for other people to
    determine. But the one thing that I would say today--we live in an age
    where anybody can say anything and, unlike in previous times, it gets
    into print. And even if they admit they took money to say it--which is
    what happened in my case a couple of times--it still gets wide currency.
    So there's not much I can do about that.
        I can tell you this: The work I've tried to do to reduce teen
    pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births generally is something I've been
    involved in for many years. And I think it's a very serious matter. The
    life of these young people was very, very different than my life was
    when I was their age. Their temptations, their travails, it's very, very
    different and much more difficult for them. And I think we've got to try
    to find a way to help them walk back from what is now happening.
        Interestingly enough--this is a statistical comment I'm making now--
    there is some evidence that the efforts may be beginning to have some
    impact. The actual numbers of out-of-wedlock births have stabilized in
    the last 2 or 3 years. The rate of illegitimacy is going up because the
    rate of childbearing by couples who are young and successful is going
    down, which is another problem for another discussion. But anyway, I
    don't see that we have any choice as a people to deal with it, and
    it's--and you know, if folks want to use that as another excuse to
    attack me, that's their problem, not mine.

    Welfare Reform and Abortion

        Q. Related to that, some people suggest that both your welfare
    reform proposals and the Contract With America's welfare reform proposal
    takes such Draconian measures against these unwed teen mothers in terms
    of limits that what it's likely to do is to drive up the abortion rate,
    not stop the unwanted pregnancy rate but drive up the abortion rate. Do
    you see that happening?
        The President. Well, I don't agree with that in my proposal, and
    obviously I don't know what would happen in the others, but let's look
    at that.
        The abortion rate has been going down in America. And I think it's
    been going down for--maybe because of all the protest against abortion.
    But I also think that most Americans have deeply ambivalent feelings.
    That is, I believe that a majority of Americans are pro-choice and anti-
    abortion. That is, they don't believe that the decision should be
    criminalized because there are too many different circumstances where
    most of us feel that decisions should be left to the people who are
    involved rather than having a totally legal prohibition. On the other
    hand, most people think in most circumstances that abortion is wrong and
    that it shouldn't be done.
        So the abortion rate is going down in America. It's still very much
    too high, and we've tried to do some things to make adoption more
    attractive. And there was a law signed last year, that's gotten almost
    no notice because it was part of the Elementary and Secondary Education
    Act, to try to remove the prohibitions or the discriminations in courts
    across the country in cross-racial adoptions to try to do whatever we
    could to just encourage more adoptions.
        But let me back up to your question and to explain, if I might, why
    I don't agree that our position would cause more abortions. There are
    basically three different approaches, with a zillion different
    limitations, but three different approaches in this welfare debate.
    There is the Contract approach which is deny benefits to the second
    welfare child born out of wedlock. And then this extreme version is deny
    benefits to any teenager who has a child out of wedlock and to that
    child for up to 18 years. That's what--then there's the people who say,
    turn it over to the States and let them do whatever they want, which
    could include that.
        Our position is give the States a lot more flexibility, but don't
    punish the children; take care of their basic needs. And we say don't
    cut the parents off of public assistance unless, number one, they're bad
    parents or, number

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    two, they do things which will undermine their ability to either be
    successful workers or successful parents.
        So for example, the way our plan works is if you're a teenager and
    you have a baby, in order to draw the public assistance in a normal way
    you'd have to stay in school, you'd have to live at home with your
    parents, and if you lived in a bad home you'd have to live in some other
    supervised setting. You'd have to cooperate and help identify the father
    so we could attempt to get the father to pay child support and support
    the child. If at the end of your education period and training, if 2
    years have elapsed and you haven't gone to work, then you would have to
    go to work if there were a job available. And if you turned down a job,
    you could lose your benefits. Under their proposal, the second problem
    is, you'd be cut off after 2 years whether there's a job there or not.
        So the two differences are, I say cut people off after a limited
    amount of time if there's a job there. They say cut them off altogether.
    I say only take benefits away from people if they misbehave as parents
    or in their own responsibilities. They say if you have a child out of
    wedlock and you're a teenager, you should never get benefits and neither
    should your child.
        I'll leave it to you to conclude what impact that might have on the
    abortion rate; I don't know. But I don't believe ours would. I think
    ours is responsible. You have to have more requirements on people; you
    can't just continue to perpetuate the present system. But I don't think
    you should punish the children or punish people for their past mistakes.
    You should deal with their present conduct.

    Child Health and Welfare

        Q. What about the suggestion that, particularly of Speaker Gingrich,
    that the churches and the charities should be able to take over much of
    the responsibility, including the financial responsibility that the
    Government now has for foster children and various other tough social
    situations? Is that an appropriate way for these problems to be taken
    care of, for these people to be cared for? And if so, how should the
    money get there?
        The President. Well, I think the churches could well be involved in
    more activities. For example, I think that you might--and one of the
    things that I want to do is to give more flexibility in how to implement
    welfare reform to State and local government. If they want to involve
    the church, particularly, for example, in developing supervised settings
    for young girls and their children who can't, and shouldn't, be living
    in their homes because of the problems in their homes, that's the sort
    of partnership that I would certainly not oppose.
        But I don't think you can say from that that there's no national
    interest which should command some taxpayer support to make sure that
    these children have minimal levels of nutrition and medical care and
    just the basic things that it seems to me we've got an interest in
    doing, because we don't want to lose any more of these kids than we have
    to.
        The welfare benefits themselves, by the way, are not a problem. The
    real welfare benefits are about 40 percent lower than they were 20 years
    ago. So nobody goes on welfare for the check. It's the child care; it's
    the food stamps; it's the medical care for your children. Therefore,
    nearly anybody who can will get off and go to work if they can take care
    of their children and their children won't lose their health care.
        But do I think the churches should do more? I do. And one of the
    things that we want to do is to give more operational control of this
    program to the States and let them use churches or community
    organizations or others to do whatever they can to repair the families.
        Q. Much of what the churches already do--for instance, Catholic
    Charities, their money comes from contracts through Federal agencies. In
    essence, what some of the Republican proposals are asking them to do is
    to continue doing the sort of work but without those contracts, without
    the money.
        The President. Well, it will just be harder for them, won't it? I
    mean, I think--I mean, Fred is a good example. The Government does not--
    we are not a particularly generous country in terms of social welfare.
    The thing--I don't think the American people object to spending tax
    money on poor people. I think what they object to is spending tax money
    on a system that perpetuates destructive conduct and irresponsible
    conduct. I think that the issue is--for example, I don't think most
    Americans really think that it would be a great idea to cut out all
    spending on poor children in order to afford a capital gains tax cut. I
    don't think that's where they would come down. On the other hand, would
    they rather have a tax cut or just waste

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    money on any program, including a program that perpetuated dependency? I
    think they would--or reduce the deficit or whatever.
        So I think the--what my goal is, is to say there's a national
    interest in the health and welfare of our children. I think it requires
    some investment of taxpayer money in the areas of particularly basic
    health care and nutrition and immunization of children against serious
    diseases. But the systems are dysfunctional. So I think we ought to try
    to fix them.

    Response to Criticism

        Q. In a meeting of Baptist leaders back in October you were asked a
    question about some of your critics who were attacking you with
    unsubstantiated charges. I'm thinking specifically of Reverend Falwell
    pushing a video on his TV program. And your response to the question was
    that you were busy running the country and didn't want to respond to
    your critics, but you were surprised that the Christian community wasn't
    taking these men on.
        Since that time, I know American Baptist Tony Campollo was asked for
    equal time on his show to try to defend you. But do you know of any
    other attempts like that, or anything since that time to try to answer
    some----
        The President. There have been an awful lot of attempts--I think
    there have been a lot of press stories refuting some of the specific
    allegations. But I would just say again, in the world we're living in--
    I'll say what I said at the prayer breakfast today--there is an
    inordinate premium put on the use of words to destroy or to distract
    people. And it takes away from my ability to be President, to do the job
    with a clear head and a clear heart and to focus on the American people,
    if I have to spend all my time trying to answer charges about what
    people say that I did years ago. And I just can't do it; I just can't do
    it.
        I do the very best I can. Sometimes you can actually disprove
    something someone says about you. A lot of times, some people could lie
    about you in ways that you can't disprove. You can't always disprove
    every assertion. So insofar as whatever happened, I can't change
    yesterday, I can only change today and tomorrow. So I've just got to
    keep going. I think it is--I think I have--if I'd done anything, even
    though I've tried not to deal with it at all, I think whatever time I've
    spent kind of trying to absorb those blows since I've been President has
    been time and effort and energy, emotional as well as intellectual
    energy, has taken away from the American people. And I'm not going to
    cheat them anymore; I'm just not going to do it. I'm tired of letting
    other people say things that require me to deprive the American people
    of the best effort I can make. They'll have to make whatever evaluation
    of this they want to.
        There is a difference between reputation and character, and I have
    increasingly less control over my reputation but still full control over
    my character. That's between me and God, and I've just got to try to be
    purified by this.
        I also noticed, Winston Churchill said--I ran across this the other
    day--that just because someone strays from the truth in criticizing you
    doesn't mean you can't learn something from their criticism. So I've
    decided that I'll try--need to learn a little something from my critics,
    even if what they say is not so. None of us are perfect, and I'm
    certainly not. But I just can't--I really think I made the right
    decision to try to just tune it out and go forward.
        Q. Is there a place in the Scriptures where you find a source for
    the kind of faith you talked about earlier and stillness in facing these
    things, a story or a parable or a reading that you've turned to?
        The President. Well, it's interesting, I just finished reading the
    entire Psalms. I also read--this is ironic--Lloyd Ogilvie's book on the
    Psalms that I didn't--I read it before he was selected to be Chaplain of
    the Senate. And there are a lot of the Psalms where David is sort of
    praying for the strength to be sort of purified in the face of adversity
    and in the face of his own failures.
        There are a lot of the Proverbs which talk about the importance of
    keeping a quiet tongue and at least not getting in your own way, which
    I've done a lot in my life and which I've tried, even still, to grow out
    of. And I've spent a lot of time dealing with that over the last 2
    years, as you would imagine I would have to.
        I think the important thing, and I find this in the Scriptures over
    and over again, the important thing that I have to keep focusing on is
    what am I going to do today, what am I going to do tomorrow, how can I
    be free to call on the power of God to make the most of this job that I
    have for a little bit of time in the grand sweep of things. And that's
    just what I keep focusing on every day.

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        But I think--you'd be amazed how many people write me little fax
    notes, from friends of mine on a daily basis, saying look at this
    Scripture, look at that Scripture, look at the other Scripture. During
    this difficult period, a lot of people were giving me different Psalms
    to read--it was amazing--and so I did.

     Negativism in Politics

        Q. Sir, when you talk about destructive language, if you--you refer
    to personal attacks on yourself. But what about some of the uncivil
    language which has been so much in the news over the past months that
    has been in Congress? Are you including that in----
        The President. Oh, sure. I said today at the prayer breakfast, I
    don't think anybody in public life, including me, is blameless. I think
    it's that there are general--excuse me, genuine differences that people
    have on issues, and they ought to express them. But our public life
    needs more of the spirit of reconciliation, it needs more civility, it
    needs more humility. Sometimes we think we know things we don't.
        And I think on debates over public issues, that is true as well. The
    American people very much want us to--they respond to these negative
    things, but they don't like it. The reason it keeps happening is because
    they respond to it. The politicians read polls, you know, and they know
    very often that the negative campaigns work and elect people. And they
    know that if you just constantly demean and run down people, like, after
    a while it sticks. They know that, so they keep on doing it. And the
    people respond to it, but they hate it. It's almost saying, ``I wish
    you'd lock this liquor store up so I couldn't drink anymore.''
        And so somehow we have to crawl back off of this wedge because it
    has, as I said, it's--today people get more information that is sort of
    argumentative and editorial and often less accurate, and then get in a
    more negative context than ever before. And it is a function of the
    information explosion. And so I do believe that I and others have a
    heavier responsibility even than we might have had in a former time,
    when in order to just get people's attention, you might take a little
    license with your language, you know.

    Politics and Religion

        Q. [Inaudible]--proven through the words and your actions that you
    are a genuinely religious person, since you were very young, and your
    wife as well. And a lot of religious people I talk to don't seem to
    accept that, who don't seem to feel it's genuine, feel that you're using
    it in the course of making politics. And I'm wondering why, if you
    believe that, too, and if you--any analysis as to why that is and what
    it might say about the role of religion in politics, whether they really
    ought to be bound together----
        The President. Well, I don't think they should be bound together. I
    mean, I think the First Amendment is a good thing for our country, that
    we protect the right of everybody to be faithful to whatever they
    believe by not uniting church and state. But I don't think you can
    change people or who they are. They have the convictions they have. They
    have the beliefs they have.
        And what I've tried to do is to draw the proper balance by
    encouraging people of all faiths, including people who disagree with me,
    to be activist citizens. I think the--the book that Stephen Carter wrote
    on that, he makes a better statement about that than I can make, in
    terms of why they don't accept that about me. I think it's hard to make
    a case that I have tried to use this. I've never tried to say that--for
    example, I never tried to say that there was a Christian coalition
    behind anything I did, you know, that God had ordained us to do these
    following things and I knew it, and anybody that didn't was seized by
    the Devil. I never said that.
        I've said that like every other person, I consider myself a sinner
    because I believe I consider myself forgiven. I consider--you know, I
    need the power of God. This is a humble thing for me. But it's an
    important part of my life and has been for a long time, but especially
    again in recent years and before I became President. And the same thing
    is true for Hillary.
        I think the truth is that there are people who don't believe it's
    genuine because they disagree with me politically. They don't believe
    that you could be a committed Christian and not want to criminalize all
    abortions. ``I just don't believe you can be''--that's what they think.
    They don't believe that you could be a committed Christian and believe
    that--take the position that I took on gays in the military. They
    thought--think the Bible dictated the previous policy on gays in the
    military, even though we fought two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam

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    with a different policy. But they don't believe that. That's their
    conviction.
        So then I think there are people, once they disagree with you so
    much, who will believe--who will believe in perpetuating anything
    anybody says about you, and so they think that's evidence of that. But--
    you know, the Bible is full of refutations of the latter point. All they
    had to do was read the Scripture to know better than to make that
    argument. But I can't worry about them; that's their problem. Let them
    think what they want.
        I literally--you know, the one thing I realize is, is I wasted too
    much time when I got here, and it caused me to be a less effective
    President, either being hurt by or paying a great deal of attention to
    what people said about me in the past. And I've just got to try to keep
    going and fight against it, because the people that wanted to really
    blow that up either wanted to do it for their own purposes or wanted to
    do it literally without regard to whether the Government of the United
    States functions or the public interest is furthered. It's just a crazy
    way to behave; you can't do it. It never happened before in our history
    to this extent, and it shouldn't be happening now. And if it is
    happening, I can't control it. So what I should do is just do my job and
    shut it out; that's what I have to do.
        Q. Sir, do you think that religious groups such as the Christian
    Coalition risk their credibility by wholesale endorsement of the
    Contract With America?
        The President. Well, I think that's for others to judge, I think,
    but I would say this: You know, I think that they will come to be seen
    more and more like a political party with an agenda, rather than people
    who are driven into politics based on one or two issues that they
    believe the Bible dictates a position different from the present policy
    of the United States.
        And there are a lot of European political parties with the name
    ``Christian'' in them, the Christian Democratic Party in Germany, Helmut
    Kohl's party. Nobody considers him to be, how should I say, sacrilegious
    because he's part of a party called the Christian Democratic Party that
    has religious roots, but no one anymore seriously believes that every
    position they take is rooted in their reading of the Scripture. And I
    think that the Christian Coalition is long since at that point.
        Now, the thing I do think they have to be careful about with their
    credibility is the very, very hard hits they put on office holders who
    don't do as they believe. I remember one of the Members of Congress who
    lost in the last election told me of an encounter with a Christian
    Coalition minister who said to this Member, ``Well, you want to see what
    we're going to put out in our churches on Sunday, tomorrow?'' And she
    said, ``Yes, I'd like to see it.'' And she went to these ten items; she
    said, ``But these two things aren't true.'' He said, ``So, it's
    generally true. So what?''
        So I think that that could hurt their credibility more than anything
    else, the idea that they're using the emotions of people of faith who
    are deeply disturbed for good reasons with what's going on in our
    country today and channeling those emotions into convictions about
    people in public life that aren't true. Now, that could hurt their
    credibility.
        But I think just taking positions on these other things, I think
    everybody knows that they basically are an arm of the Republican Party
    and that they're going to take all these positions. I don't see that
    there's anything wrong with them doing it. And I agree with some of
    them, too. You know, I don't disagree with everything in that Contract;
    I agree with some of it.
        Did everybody get a question? I'm glad to see you.
        Q. It's good to see you.
        The President. Thanks. Do you ever wish you were back in Conway?
        Q. Almost every day when I'm driving out to Fairfax County for that
    hour and a half. [Laughter]
        The President. It's pretty out there. I had a woman today from
    Lonoke come sing at the prayer breakfast. It made me so homesick I could
    hardly stand it.

    Note: The interview began at 11:46 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of this
    interview.

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