John Bel Edwards: “In this bill, okay. But I guess the point I would raise is that if the church is involved in hiring people and being…”

“In this bill, okay. But I guess the point I would raise is that if the church is involved in hiring people and being responsible for expenditures of Federal tax dollars, it opens up the possibility that in some way or another a church or a house of worship is going to have to be audited in order to ensure the taxpayers that their monies are being spent for the purpose for which this bill intended. Mr. Speaker, clearly my greatest objection is not that this is good legislation. It has worked well and could continue to work well, but it is wrong even in the best of legislation to take our Federal tax dollars and give to any organization and say they can take those Federal tax dollars and put out a sign that says, such as a Bob Jones' related church they could say, no Catholic need apply here for a federally funded job. I understand why the Civil Rights Act says the Methodist church can hire a Methodist pastor, a Jewish synagogue can hire a Jewish rabbi. That is why there was an exception in the Civil Rights Act for that kind of quote/unquote discrimination, but the Civil Rights Act passed in the 1960s never envisioned Federal dollars going directly to pervasively sectarian organizations. In fact, I found it interesting in this bill it says it has to be consistent with the establishment/separation clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.”