Emanuel Cleaver: “I have been the pastor of the St. James United Methodist Church for 33 years. The bishop gives me the authority to bring…”

“I have been the pastor of the St. James United Methodist Church for 33 years. The bishop gives me the authority to bring pastors onto our staff, and I discriminate. I have five pastors. All of them are Methodists, and they are paid with Methodist dollars. Each one of them. They are paid out of the stewardship of the church, and I have the right to do that. But I don't have the right to accept Federal dollars and discriminate. Minorities have come to Washington over the years because this was the seat of power and it was believed that if you could get close to the seat of power, freedom would be more available. The same thing holds true with dollars. People go to work for the Federal Government, and if they see dollars going to a Head Start program, they believe automatically that there will be no discrimination. And we should not, we should not, turn it around now.”