Walter B. Jones: “as I am on the floor tonight, I think about the great history of this country and the fact that this Nation was founded…”

“as I am on the floor tonight, I think about the great history of this country and the fact that this Nation was founded by people of faith; and yet in this great Nation today, our chaplains in the military are being told if they should be of the Christian faith that they cannot outside of their church pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Mr. Speaker, to me this is very alarming when we have a President, President Bush, who is a man of faith, who went to China and criticized the Chinese, or at least encouraged the Chinese, to allow the Chinese to have more religious freedom. This never seemed to be a problem until about 1998. For whatever reason, those in the leadership of the chaplain corps of the military decided that they needed to encourage those of faith, particularly the Christian faith, not to pray in the name of Jesus Christ outside of the church. Mr. Speaker, I want to say I would be on the floor tonight if this were happening to the Jewish chaplains, to the Muslims chaplains in the military. I would be on the floor defending their first amendment right because that is exactly why our men and women in uniform are in Iraq and Afghanistan, to defend freedom; and yet within this country we are having our chaplains being denied their freedom to pray in the name of their faith. Mr.…”