Douglas Alexander: “I mentioned a few moments ago that if our future Federal judges had a few more courses in American history and civics…”

“I mentioned a few moments ago that if our future Federal judges had a few more courses in American history and civics, we might not have these decisions. I see the Senator from Alabama is in the Chamber. I think of the pivot point of the Revolutionary War when all the Europeans on the western side of the mountain in Tennessee were enraged. They were tired of paying taxes to support the bishop of a church to which they did not belong. So they helped fight the Revolution; that is separation of church and state. They did not want to pay taxes to support another church. Before they went over the mountain to the Battle of King's Mountain in Watauga, they went down on their knees to pray. The great pioneer preacher, Samuel Doke, prayed about the sword of the Lord and Gideon. They knew how to separate church and state and still be a religious country. If they knew it, why don't Federal judges know it? Why don't they know that George Washington went down on his knees at Valley Forge, and that Abraham Lincoln turned the war over to the Lord, and General Pershing advised troops to pray? Did they not see President Bush take America to church after 9/11 and then walk across the street to a mosque? We know how to be a religious country and separate church and state, and our Federal judges ought to know how to do that.”