Tim Scott: “Mr. Speaker, anyone thinking that a vote for this resolution represents a show of their own support for the virtues of…”

“Mr. Speaker, anyone thinking that a vote for this resolution represents a show of their own support for the virtues of the Ten Commandments should take pause. This actually demeans Christianity rather than upholds it. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, ``When religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.'' Mr. Speaker, Christians do not need the courts to endorse or legitimize our religion, and asking for support from a court for endorsement is self-defeating. Mr. Speaker, when the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison the following: ``It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who has had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.'' Mr. Speaker, this resolution comes to us without warning, without hearings, without deliberation. It has come without an explanation of why it is so urgent that, if it is constitutional, the process will work its will. If it is not constitutional, it does not matter what we think.…”