Rob Andrews: “If a proposal were brought to the House floor that said the following, ``If an American makes a charitable contribution…”

“If a proposal were brought to the House floor that said the following, ``If an American makes a charitable contribution and takes a deduction on his income tax return, that we're going to disallow the charitable deduction if the group that's receiving the money promotes gun ownership, gun rights or gun education,'' I suspect it would not get one vote on the Republican side of the aisle, and it shouldn't get any votes on the Democratic side of the aisle because it's wrong and it's probably unconstitutional. That is exactly what the underlying bill does here. It says that an American exercising his or her constitutional right, in this case her constitutional right, with their own money, will suffer a negative tax consequence because the majority wants them to. Understand this. If an American woman, with her own money, chooses to exercise her constitutional right, she will be suffering an increase in taxes as a result of making this decision. I scarcely say that anyone on the majority side would agree that if we picked one of their favorite social issues and said we're going to raise taxes on people who engage in that social issue, much less than a constitutional right, that they would agree with this. This is not a debate about abortion. This is a debate about privacy. It's a debate about individual liberty and the right of people to do what they choose with their own money, particularly when they're enforcing one of their own constitutional rights.…”