Ted Poe: “I thank the chairman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, religious liberty is the first right in our Bill of Rights, and it…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, religious liberty is the first right in our Bill of Rights, and it is in the First Amendment. There are five rights in the First Amendment. Religious liberty is the first of those five rights. That is not by accident. Our ancestors believed in the right of religious liberty. In fact, throughout the world today, religious freedom is the most important personal right for many, many people of all religious faiths--the right to practice one's religion free of persecution regardless of what that religion is. Mr. Speaker, Saddique Azam was promoted as the headmaster of an elementary school in Pakistan a few months ago. Three Muslim teachers didn't like the fact that they had a Christian as their boss. So, yesterday, about 7:45 in the morning, they stormed his office and demanded that he resign because he was a Christian. He refused. They beat him up until he was rescued by some other staff members. Curricula in schools throughout the world are teaching religious intolerance. The Saudi school curriculum openly vilifies other faiths, including Jews and Christians. Not too long ago, there was a 14-year- old boy by the name of Ayman Nabil Labib, a Christian in Egypt, a Coptic Christian. He went to school. The teacher of his class, a non- Christian, saw that he had a cross on his wrist. Coptic Christians I understand have a tattoo of a cross. He was told to cover up the cross. He did not.…”