Political Quotes

“In the midst of all of our difficult debates that are occurring in this body and throughout Washington, whether it is about the right type of health care reform or how to stop the ever-expanding Federal debt which threatens both our economic as well as national security, and as important as these debates are, it should not be lost on us, though, that there is a grave struggle for the protection of a fundamental proposition of human dignity and a basis for civilization itself. This is the protection of the rights of conscience and religious freedom. Even in the midst of all of our other debates, many Americans are concerned about the heart-wrenching stories of individuals who have been detained, condemned, incarcerated, often tortured, sometimes for years, throughout the world, even under the sentence of death for some, simply for the peaceful exercise of their religious rights. Mr. Speaker, given the scale of human suffering endured and extensively documented in this past century alone, it is often difficult to grasp that humanity, in the 21st century, with all of its technological advances at our disposal, has not yet learned some very basic lessons. These lessons of the 20th century, after two horrific world wars and other unspeakable human tragedies, including the Holocaust and the slaughter of tens of millions of persons under the repressive and cruel Communist regimes, should not be lost.…”