Tim Walberg: “I appreciate the opportunity from the gentleman from California to stand with my colleagues tonight to speak on an…”

“I appreciate the opportunity from the gentleman from California to stand with my colleagues tonight to speak on an important issue. It was an amazing experience for me this morning to be part of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and to have a hearing where we had numerous members of religious organizations, including leaders in the Catholic, the Jewish, and the Protestant faiths, in front of us, men who were appealing for rights that should be taken for granted in this country, the rights of religious freedom. It brought back to me the thoughts that I experienced just a year ago almost this very day when I was in Israel and had the opportunity to hear from the Prime Minister of Israel as he spoke with glowing admiration for America. He talked about the religious liberty that was unlike any other place in the world in Israel today for all faiths, all religions, based upon, as he said, the experience, the value, and the documents of America and its foundings. {time} 1910 And so, today, to hear our religious leaders speaking for their religious liberty was unreal. Those documents that the Prime Minister of Israel referred to going back to the Declaration of Independence, where it says: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Liberty. And our First Amendment has been quoted numerous times tonight.…”