Arlen Specter: “This legislation, the International Religious Freedom Act, constitutes a very firm stand by the United States against…”

“This legislation, the International Religious Freedom Act, constitutes a very firm stand by the United States against religious persecution worldwide. A bipartisan group of Senators have spearheaded this effort, and the outcome is one in which the Senate can be proud. The rockbed of America is religious freedom. That is the reason that the pilgrims came to this country, to the settlements in Virginia in 1607 and in Massachusetts with the pilgrims in 1620. That was also the reason that my father, Harry Specter, came to this country in 1911 at the age of 18, and my mother, Lillie Shanin Specter, came to this country at the age of 5 with her family which had lived in a small town on the Russian-Polish border. Freedom of religion is the heart of the first amendment, the provisions for religious freedom. We have seen worldwide unspeakable religious persecution. We have seen Catholic clerics mistreated and tortured in China. We have seen Christians sold into slavery in the Sudan. We have seen the risk of the death penalty in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia for those of the Islam faith who seek to convert to Christianity.”