Congress is no champion of religious freedom, but religious freedom has a champion in Congress. His name is Steve Russell.
On May 26, Rep. Russell (R-Okla.) took to the House floor to speak for 26 minutes on the history of religious freedom, why the Founding Fathers thought it was so important, how it is being assaulted by radical leftists today, and why we must protect it against those unconstitutional assaults.
Rep. Russell understands that we are in the midst of a war with radical leftists for the heart and soul of this country. The very idea of religious freedom is the battlefield, and we cannot afford to give up this ground.
Watch the full speech below. It is, at times, depressing, but it is also very inspiring. Share this speech with your friends. This is our battle cry for religious freedom.
Here were my five favorite lines in the speech:
5.) (0:46) “I am saddened Madam Speaker that in our current day, the greatest assault on the free exercise of religion is being perpetuated by those most responsible to protect it—those who uphold the law. Worse still, we see our Armed Forces, whose singular purpose is to support and defend the Constitution now perpetually being used as the vehicle to subvert the very document they risk their lives to defend.”
4.) (3:11) “The groups under assault are often the best, if not the only, organizations able to offer the assistance they perform, doing invaluable work to relieve the suffering, aid the returning combat warrior, assist in the rehabilitation of substance abuse for those not adjusting well, and many other such services that have been going on for many decades.
“To curtail the blatant discrimination against these groups, I offered a simple amendment to protect them under existing law in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1990 Americans with Disability Act. You would have thought I had killed someone’s mother.”
3.) (3:59) “Instead of upholding the free exercise clause of the 1st Amendment, we have now seen this body continue its assault on faith in America. It is not enough to level accusations of injustice. They will not be satisfied until their assaults of intolerance on people of faith in this country has produced an elimination of God in public life in America.
“We are accused of hatred, called out as shameful, and enjoined to use the whole Constitution to support an opposing view that embodies behavior, mores and outcomes that not only violate our conscience, but have been prohibited under the laws of nature and nature’s God.”
2.) (4:42) “In the last 50 years, we have seen the constitution used by these ideologues to kill American children in the womb, eliminate family structure, elevate behavior over belief, redefine marriage and assault into silence and inaction any who oppose them. Not satisfied, we now see them without rest on their quest to eliminate free exercise of faith in the United States. Do we really want a nation without God? They would call it progress. Yet our conscience knows different.”
1.) (21:25) “Our institutions, once based on the Creator of Life, have now appointed themselves to usurp the authority of God who is the author of life, marriage, and family. The most elemental sovereign unit, the family, has been destroyed by our foolish decisions.
“We are told instead by those of us sworn to uphold the law that murder is not murder, marriage is not marriage and family is not family. We have allowed constitutional constructs to kill a child and call it a choice. We have seen discreet behaviors and private sexual preferences promoted to public display while what is constitutionally guaranteed to be able to express—religion—is now being publicly prohibited.
“This nation, at its highest level, has taken a position against God.”
Jon Schweppe is the Communications Director for American Principles Project. Follow him on Twitter @JonSchweppe.
