Political Quotes

“Parents, beware, Mr. Speaker. If the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) in the next 5 hours is successful in beginning the process to amend the Bill of Rights for the first time in our Nation's history, public schools across America will begin to look like public airports, where religious groups, cults and fanatics can go to our public school grounds and try to convert small children to their particular religious beliefs. I do not think the parents of America want to send their children to school to be proselytized. They send their children to school to be educated. I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, that just outside the halls of this historic Chamber, religious leaders of great faith from all over this country, Baptists, Methodists, Jews, Episcopalians and many other faiths will speak out against the Istook amendment, because they believe as Jefferson and Madison did that the best way to ruin religion is to politicize it. That is what the Istook amendment will do. I urge parents, people and Members across this body and America to oppose the Istook amendment.”