If we succeed in putting an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, it will not be that astronaut who went. It will in fact be all of us in America.

But there is a difference between exercising religious beliefs and imposing them on others.

If civil liberties and legal rights exist only in the absence of a neighbor's religious objection, then they are not rights, but empty promises.

I thank the Chairman for holding this important hearing and for his decades of leadership on this issue and so many issues with regards to our civil rights.

The 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act received overwhelming support also from more than 60 national religious and civil liberties organizations from across the philosophical and political spectrum.

House Republicans will also continue our steadfast support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and will fight any attempts to diminish or weaken the law which has served our country well for over 25 years.

The Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby opened the doors for these flood gates even further.

RFRA was meant to be a shield that protects.

For so many reasons we know, religious liberty is often referred to as our First Freedom.

I hope all of us here can agree that while religious liberty remains a fundamental value, it cannot and should not be used as a weapon to cause harm to others, but rather as a shield to protect the civil rights of people of all faiths, not just a favored few.

I am here today to urge opposition to this legislation because I am convinced it would eviscerate one of the most important and widely regarded laws that has ever been passed by the Congress, and that is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, as we call it.