Ernest Istook: “tonight I am going to be talking about a very important issue that is coming before this House in approximately a month…”

“tonight I am going to be talking about a very important issue that is coming before this House in approximately a month, that being the Religious Freedom Amendment. The Religious Freedom Amendment, known as House Joint Resolution 78, is responding to the public's very valid concern for the last generation that the courts in the United States of America have become hostile to religion. They have placed barriers to religious expression which do not exist for other forms of speech for free speech. A false standard has been created by the courts basically saying, well, if everyone is not unanimous in agreeing on some religious topic, then we ought to be censoring it, if it is something like a prayer in a public school during the school hours or the football game or at a graduation. In fact, it is a tradition. The earliest recorded public school graduation in the United States, according to the Supreme Court, featured a prayer.”