Mark Souder: “the subject I want to address tonight is one that has been in the news a lot lately, and a lot of people are confused…”

“the subject I want to address tonight is one that has been in the news a lot lately, and a lot of people are confused and many Members of Congress are confused. I want to review some of the basics, and that is about the faith-based initiative or the so-called Community Solutions Act that will be marked up presumably next week in the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Ways and Means, as well as hopefully brought to the House floor right after the July 4th break. This is an area that has, as I said, a lot of controversy in it, a lot of conflict in it, and at the same time is so basic to how we are going to deliver social services and how we might address the problems of the United States that it is absolutely essential. I would like to go into a little bit of overview as to what all of the fuss is about and why so many people are talking about faith. One would think from some of the media coverage this is a brand new idea discovered by President Bush and it was never talked about before in American history. In fact, it has been part of the United States from the very beginning. It has just been in recent years that we have tended to deny this. The Pilgrims came here because they wanted to practice freedom of their faith. The Catholics in Maryland came because they wanted freedom for their faith. The Quakers in Pennsylvania came to the United States because they wanted freedom to practice their faith.”