Chris Smith: “I thank my good friend for yielding, and I thank the gentlelady from Texas for her very strong and passionate remarks. I…”

“I thank my good friend for yielding, and I thank the gentlelady from Texas for her very strong and passionate remarks. I especially again want to thank Congresswoman Meng for her excellent statement and her support and cosponsorship of this important bill. Let me just say a couple of points to my colleagues. First of all, I will be submitting for the Record a very fine analysis by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an outstanding public interest law firm that has done yeoman's work throughout the country on religious liberty. It's a statement to us as Members of Congress by its leaders. It points out first not only does the Establishment Clause provide no support for FEMA's practice of discriminating against houses of worship, that practice itself runs afoul of the First Amendment by discriminating against religious institutions. Second, the bill you have proposed will not lead to Establishment Clause violations because no act of Congress can purport to repeal the First Amendment. Arguments to the contrary are constitutional scaremongering. Eric Rassbach and Daniel Blomberg have authored again a very important contribution to this debate. Madam Speaker--and Ms. Meng mentioned this earlier and it bears repeating--in letters of support for H.R.…”