Melvin Watt: “I find it very interesting to serve in a body where the Committee on Rules 1 week decides that democracy is all about…”

“I find it very interesting to serve in a body where the Committee on Rules 1 week decides that democracy is all about debating every single amendment separately, and then the very next week decides that it will not allow a separate debate on an amendment that would eliminate the ability of religious institutions to discriminate in their employment practices and remove the offensive provision that everybody is concerned about from this bill. This is not a debate about government versus God. We made that choice when the Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution ``one Nation, under God,'' and we have been living with that choice ever since. But we made a different choice in 1965 when we outlawed discrimination in this country. It was not a unanimous decision by the Nation at that time, but I am appalled 20 or 40 years later now to be debating the issue of whether we will allow religious discrimination to be engaged in in the delivery of services by church institutions, and we are doing it in the name of God. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Traficant) said, ``Beam me up.'' I want to be beamed up on that false choice. We should have a rule that allows us to offer an amendment to strike this offensive provision from this bill, and then we would have almost unanimous support for the bill. But they would rather have the issue than the support.”