Political Quotes

“I rise to draw attention to a resolution that I submitted today dealing with guidelines on harassment in the workplace published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on October 1, 1993. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is charged under various civil rights laws with preventing harassment in a variety of areas in our working environments, and in the past they have issued an established guideline to employers to prohibit harassment of individuals based on sex, race, creed, and color. The new guidelines, though, involve a different area than has been addressed in the past. Among other areas, they specifically deal with religion. And the new guidelines are dramatically different than the legal and ethical philosophies that have affected this country over its entire history. Our history is one of expanding individual freedom, one of expanding the right to exercise any religious belief that one may choose. It is a history which notes the expansion of individual freedom and rights of expression. The new religious harassment guidelines do the opposite. For the first time that I am aware of in U.S. history, we will have a Government agency act to dramatically suppress the ability of people to express their own religious beliefs, even in a way that does nothing more than simply indicate their faith or preferences, or otherwise celebrate their joy and faith at holidays or other special times.”