Mark Souder: “Perhaps my colleague had not heard, we cannot refer to him as Santa Claus. It is just Claus. "Santa" is, of course…”

“Perhaps my colleague had not heard, we cannot refer to him as Santa Claus. It is just Claus. "Santa" is, of course, "saint" in Spanish, so we really should not say that. And I am waiting for it to be called Patrick's Day rather than St. Patrick's Day. It has a little bit of religious overtones. We have to be so careful in our society anymore. Mr. Chairman, at the end of this particular special order, I would like to insert into the Record an article. It is actually a book review in this week's Weekly Standard magazine by Richard Neuhaus, one of the tremendous Christian writers in this country who wrote "Religion in the Public Square." He has a review of John Noonan's new book "The Luster of Our Country, the American Experience of Religious Freedom." I would like to insert this review into the Record at the end of this special order. He makes two points in this review that, in fact, one of the reasons some people want to suppress religious freedom and free exercise is that, in fact, it is a danger to the State; that there have been a number of efforts in this country rooted in religious freedom, the abolition of slavery, the war against polygamy, the prohibition of alcohol, and the civil rights movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King, that really forced changes in our political system.”