On the recordFebruary 26, 2015
I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia's response. Mr. Chairman, our amendment is not intended to cause any establishment of any religion or to encourage the proselytization of any religious beliefs in school. Our amendment is just basically to protect the rights of students and of teachers and of school administrators to practice their individual beliefs and not have to check their religious freedoms at the door. It does nothing to establish any religion. We need to recognize that there are too often too many times that somebody wears a religious necklace to school and a school administrator violates his right of religious freedom by telling him he has to remove that or, if one wears a T-shirt that has a Biblical phrase or a Biblical verse, that he has to remove that shirt or be banned from wearing that shirt in the future from school because of an administrator who doesn't understand the protections offered by the First Amendment. This amendment, this sense of Congress, is purely to protect the rights that we have as students and as administrators and teachers under the First Amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.
