MP3 audio

Alan Keyes
July 5, 2004
Orem, Utah

STATE SEN. PARLEY HELLEWELL, INTRODUCTION: It's a great honor for me to be here today to introduce you to Alan Keyes, Dr. Alan Keyes. Many of you have already met him before and know him.

You know, when this event was being planned, Stephen Stone asked me if I wanted to be one of the speakers, and I said, "Well, on one condition--that's if I don't have to speak after or before Alan Keyes."

Alan came out here a couple months ago to nominate me--when I was running for governor--at the convention. Some of you were lucky enough to be there to hear that great speech that he gave, and if you were there, you'd know why I didn't want to speak before or after him--because I did speak after him, and afterwards everyone said, "If Alan Keyes was running for governor, we'd vote for him!"

But you know, Utah loves Alan Keyes. When he was here running for president, this auditorium here was completely full, and he got more votes from Utah than from any other state in the nation.

Well, I just want to say a couple of things about Alan Keyes here. I know we all want to hear from him. Alan Keyes spent eleven years in the U.S. State Department. He served with the U.S. Foreign Service and on the staff of the National Security Council before becoming Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, where he represented the interests of the United States in the U.N. General Assembly. In 1985, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations.

Dr. Keyes also was the former president of the Ronald Reagan Alumni Association, and twice he had the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. Of course, as we know, he ran twice for president of the United States, and as I mentioned, he got more votes from Utah.

Alan is a very patriotic man. He loves the Constitution, he loves the United States. I'm just grateful for the things that he is doing to help our country. Now, I got involved in politics because I didn't like what was going on--especially what was happening in the courts. Dr. Keyes came out here to speak for me when I was running for governor because of his belief and my belief on what's happening in the courts and other things is so much the same.

This country is blessed to have Alan Keyes working hard at the things he is doing to help our country, and I hope that we all can do our part, as he is doing.

I want to introduce you to Dr. Alan Keyes. Thank you.

ALAN KEYES: Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening.

You know, I think it's wonderfully appropriate that we have gathered together this evening in the shadow, as it were, of the celebration of the Fourth of July, because much of what we have to discuss today, and have been talking about here, actually has to do with whether or not, as a people, we mean to continue to be what the Founders of this country surely were.

Indeed, someone was commenting earlier on that it seemed like Ronald Reagan had contrived to return home in the shadow of D-Day, and that there was significance. One of the remarkable facts of our history is that one of our two greatest Founding Fathers died within hours of each other on the Fourth of July. Now, talk about arranging one's demise! This is fascinating.

And the reason that was significant is that they would both--and many and all--have declared themselves to be people of the Declaration. What is the significance of that here, today? Well, it's very simple. What's the first principle of American liberty--the first principle that was articulated in the Declaration when the Founders were declaring the causes of their breach with King George, and the justification for taking up the sword against what they regarded as the abuses of the King of England?

Well, the first principle was very simple. We hear it a lot (or at least we used to), and we ought to keep it ever in our minds as Americans, because that first principle was clear: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Now, admittedly, in the course of the last several decades, folks have put the emphasis on the "equal" part. In fact, I remember taking my youngest son some years back for a tour of Independence Hall and all of the great sites in Philadelphia, and when we were going with the guide through the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the fellow said the following words, he says, "The Declaration says today what it told us then, that we are all equal." After the tour had stopped, I went up to him and I asked him whether or not he was forced to say that, was that part of a script, or did he say that--because it wasn't quite accurate. And he asked me what I meant, and I said that the Declaration actually says "all men are created equal." And he looked at me and said, "Oh, are you one of those religious people?" And I said, "Well, it's not just that, I'm one of those people who likes the Declaration to be quoted accurately." That's all I am.

Why is that so important? Well, you see, it's so important because if all men are created equal, you can't get to the "equal" without going through the Creator--that's what that means.

It means that if we are a people of the Declaration, then we are a people who must acknowledge the existence and authority of God. For, if God does not exist, we have no rights, and if His authority is not respected, then we cannot demand respect for those rights!

But here, see, it is that very plain and simple logic that introduces us to the serious importance of the issues in the name of which we are gathered here today--the first and foremost one, I believe, being the right of the people of this country to acknowledge God, in their laws, in their public institutions, in their lives as citizens. And notice I what I say here. I don't say the right of the people to acknowledge God, I don't say the right of the individual to acknowledge God. No. I am emphasizing here not just a private right of conscience, not just a private right of individuals, I am emphasizing here our right as citizens. When we act as part of the sovereign body of the people of this country, we have a right to acknowledge God in our actions. We have a right to appeal to Him in our Constitutions and our laws.

And of course, what I think a lot of folks who look at some of these controversies that go on--the so-called issues of separation of church and state and all that--I wonder how often people will pause for a minute and remember that, if our rights come from God, and we are no longer as a people allowed to call on the name and authority of God, then how as a people shall we assert and defend our rights?

And I don't mean that in some abstract way, either--because when you go through the history of this country, from the very beginning you will find that before Americans successfully defended their rights, before they defended them successfully in their petitions, and their organizations, in their committees, and finally on the battlefields in which they won and defended that liberty, before they defended their rights in all of those forums, they had first to demand for their efforts the help of their God upon their knees.

People pretend that this nation was founded in war. I say it was founded in prayer. It was founded by a people who dared to stand upon their feet and look the tyrant in the eye because they knew to go down on their knees in order to ask for the help of a merciful God.

Now, if we're denied that, what shall then be the source of that courage that is required to defend our rights? If the revolution would not have occurred without that faithful courage, if the slaves would never have been freed, if women would never have secured the vote, if children's rights would never have been promoted and defended, if workers would never have secured the right to defend themselves in the economic fore, if people had never found the courage collectively to move forward, would we have any freedom in this country?

The appeal to God is not just an abstraction. It has been the source of that leadership which inspired, time and again, the rallying standards around which people could gather in order to assert, and promote, and defend the reality of their rights and liberty. Deprived of God's help, we are deprived of that encouragement. Deprived of that encouragement, can we count on that courage?

See, I think that this is what the folks who are promoting all of this really mean to have happen. It's not just an assault on our faith, an assault on our reverence. It is, in the truest sense of the term, an assault on the very foundations of our liberty.

And up to this point, I have to tell you, that assault has been successful. I have taken to saying these days what sounds shocking to some people, but what I think we ought to understand is the case.

We go about our business in America now, believing that we still live in a land of freedom and self-government and constitutional liberty. You realize that, though in practice, we are still going through the motions, in principle, we have already surrendered that form of government.

See, don't think we get this. We're so complacent that it will be all over before we awaken to the fact that we're no longer a free people. Because what I just said is true, but it should be shocking. We are, right now, in the midst of a time when the very foundations of our constitutional self-government have been under assault and are in the process of being destroyed--not tomorrow, not a generation from now. Right now!

And I say that advisedly. Let's look at a couple of the issues. There are two things we need to look at in some of these issues that are talked about in the media, but usually with no real sense. Two issues: one, we need to look at the what ("What is happening?"), and the other, which is equally important, is we need to look at the how ("How is it happening?").

Over the course of the last several decades, as I think Rick [Scarborough] has probably reminded you, we have seen a wholesale assault on, what? On just about everything that represents the moral faith and conviction of our people. We have seen an assault on prayer in the public arena. We have seen an assault in the educational sphere, on instruction that respected God's commandments in the Bible. We have seen an assault on the legal system, where they are now demanding that in every public place, in every courthouse, the Ten Commandments of God be removed so that they cannot have an influence on the minds of those who operate in the public precincts of our law.

And to top it all off, we are now seeing an assault on the fundamental institution of all our social and civilized life, the marriage-based family. We are seeing an assault that has as its objective, not, as some would argue to you, the liberation of this or that sexual minority; no, what they have as their objective is in fact the destruction of the institution of marriage. And they mean to achieve that destruction by defining it in such a way that it no longer has any claim to respect.

And that's pretty clear. Why, after all, is marriage the public business? Why does the government even get involved? And it has, by the way, gotten involved in just about every society known to civilized human life anywhere in the world. You have had to stand before the community, and the community has had to acknowledge the relationship between man and woman. Why is that?

I remember when I was an undergraduate studying Plato's Crito, and in it there's a speech that's given by "the Laws" in which "the Laws" say that "without us, you could not have children." And as my teacher at that time pointed out, Plato intends for you to laugh at that point, and I hope that you understand why you would chuckle. I mean, it is obviously possible for people to have children without laws! We are operating there not according to some imperative laid down by a legislature or a king, we are following an imperative that is inscribed in our very nature, in our very structure--not by the decision of human beings, but rather by the hand of the One Who shaped our very nature, itself. Marriage is, therefore, not an institution of human law, it is an institution of God's law.

And in that sense, for the relations between man and woman to take place, for even children to be produced, that doesn't require the laws. So why does the government get involved? Well, the government gets involved, y'all, because in communities, civilized life does require respect for the family.

The law, and those who shape it, must give evidence of their decision to respect the authority of the parents to enforce their responsibility for their children, and to second the motion of the respect which their children owe to the parents.

It also, of course, was meant, I think, to forestall what could be the disputes that would arise. Whose child is that? Who has responsibility for him? Who in fact has legitimate claim to this inheritance? All these things ultimately were questions that engaged the community, and required that it make a judgment about what constituted a relationship that validly resulted in the belonging of this parent to this child, this child to these parents. That's why it's there.

But tell me something. What happens to all of that if procreation is removed from the picture, if there is no reason to be worried about it, because you're not going to have children, or children aren't part of the equation? Obviously, there's no need for it, then, is there? No.

At the heart of the institution of marriage, as a social and public fact, is the fact of procreation--that it is not just an expression of the loving relationship between two individuals, it is not just an expression of their mutual interest and self-satisfaction, it is not just an expression of their pursuit of this or that pleasure or self-indulgence. No. At the heart of it, marriage involves the commitment made publicly, before the whole society, to procreation and to accepting the responsibilities and obligations entailed by procreation.

Remove that from the picture, and you've got a problem, because if you remove that from the picture, then, as a public fact, marriage has no meaning, it has no significance; it is simply a private transaction that takes place for the sake of the private parties involved, and should not be in any sense in a manner that anticipates or is antecedent to results, it shouldn't be any different than, I don't know, any other form of contractual relationship.

Is that what marriage is? Well, that's not how it has been. It has been respected, not as a contract, but as a covenant relationship that existed before society exists, and that has a basis that is antecedent to the laws made by human beings. We all rely on this, by the way, in the authority that we assert over our children. We all rely upon it in acknowledging that our responsibility to those children comes not from what others say, but from what God requires.

If we accept a definition of marriage that removes, in principle, its relation to procreation, then we have destroyed the very heart and soul of the institution.

Now, that's how I think one must be introduced to the subject of homosexuality--not from the point of view of, "Do we approve of it? Do we disapprove of it?" and so forth and so on. Some people act like that's the whole argument. From the point of view of marriage, that's not the whole argument. The whole argument is not about homosexuality, it's about marriage. But one thing we must factually observe is that in the homosexual relationship, there is no possibility of procreation. The homosexual relationship is about nothing but selfish relationship. It's about nothing but what can be procured by the parties involved. There is no transcendent obligation. It is not haunted in any way by the possibility of God's authority embodied in the helpless cries of the child.

And one of the things I find interesting is that, in their literature and other stuff, people who are homosexual acknowledge this. They write about how one of the reasons that it's such a wonderful thing is that you can engage in this pleasure free of what they consider to be the "burdens" of "problems" that might result--see? "Problems" being pregnancy. Things like that.

That is an acknowledgment that homosexual relations exclude the possibility of procreation, which means that if we accept homosexual couples as married couples, then we have defined marriage in such a way that procreation is no longer essential to it. And once we take that step, we have, as I said, destroyed marriage, itself.

That's the problem here. It's not that we want to discriminate against this group or that just on account of their behavior, it's that if we do not discriminate in this case, then we shall destroy the institution. They will not participate in it, they will bring it down.

And frankly, I think that that is the purpose and effect that a lot of people are trying to achieve. But by what right would we preserve the true understanding of marriage?

Now, I know that there are some people who would disagree with me about this. I even had a pastor who delivered a sermon at one of the Masses I attended a while back, and he wanted to make the argument that you should be able to make an argument for marriage of one man and one woman that is purely based on natural law--and what he meant by that is, that has no reference to revelation, to scripture.

And see, I think that that's not true, and it's easily demonstrated that it's not true, because you can look at every society that has existed in human history, you can look at what is done in nature by all the different animals and stuff, and guess what you will find? Nature does not provide a reliable standard when it comes to marriage in this way. Sometimes in nature, animals get together, and they just split up right away, and only one parent takes care of the child. Other times, in nature, the two parties get together, and then the one, as you know, kills the other. This is hardly a suggestive of marriage being one man, one woman.

In times in human history, there have been all kinds of practices, as you and I very well know. One man, one woman; one man, two women; two men, three men, four women-- polyandry, polygamy. I mean, human beings have done everything and tried everything. Whatever it is that's written on their heart, it does not reliably result in one man, one woman. You know why? Because if you read the scripture properly (and I won't go into this in great detail), the reason that that's the case is because, if you look at the scripture, in the scripture it's not only said that He created the male and female. It's done in the context that shows us that when He creates the male and female, He's not only telling us something about us, He's telling us something about our relationship with Him.

And that sense--not so much of whether it's one man and one woman, no. What one needs to understand is the meaning and significance of that relationship, and the scripture reveals this, because it shows us that the meaning and significance of that relationship is not in the context of our human relation, it is in the context, rather, of our relation with God. For, in the very same line that reminds us that "male and female, He created them," what does it say? "In the image and likeness of God created He them."

So, all of this is meant to say that, at the end of the day, our understanding of marriage is based, not on who we are, not even just on who God made us to be, but on who God is. And that means we couldn't have learned it just from nature in general, because who's the only person who can tell us about Himself? That's why we have revelation. Many things can be revealed about God in nature, but when God reveals Himself, it must be in His word. That we must get from Him! And in this case, what He revealed about Himself, He revealed in order to show us the true significance of this relation that is the foundation of our family life.

Now, I haven't gone through all of this just to share an abstract, theological point with you. I've gone through it in order to suggest that we can't defend the institution of marriage if we have no right to legislate about marriage in light of our faith. If we cannot respect the law of God, and the wisdom of God, and the word of God in the laws that we make about marriage and family, then we will not be able to defend the family that God has ordained.

I want to look at one other point. What happened in Massachusetts recently? I hope all of you are aware that the state court in Massachusetts--basing itself, by the way, on what it claimed was the implications of the federal Lawrence [vs. Texas] decision--they required that, in Massachusetts, licenses be issued to same-sex couples. I have just talked about what I think is substantively wrong with that, but think about this: we have now in Massachusetts a court that has presumed to dictate to the legislature, the representatives of the people, what shall be the content of the law when it comes to marriage.

Now, for those of you who know and have thought about what our government's supposed to be, this ought to also be a great shock. In every state, in every constitution--including the federal Constitution--we are supposed to have three branches of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Our Founders divided the powers of government into three branches. Why? In order to prevent tyranny. They made it clear, if the same person who makes the law carries it out, you have tyranny. If the same person who executes the law makes the law by his or her word, you have tyranny. If the same people who judge the cases and apply the law can then execute and make the law, you have tyranny.

When all those powers, or any two of them, are combined in the same hands, you no longer have liberty, you have dictatorship!

Where are we now in America? Well, I'll tell you where we are. We're supposed to have government of the people, by the people, for the people, a republic in which the laws are made by legislatures consisting of the representatives of the people. What we actually have now is government of, by, and for the judges, according to their whims and their dictates, which they now seek to impose upon our legislators, regardless of the will of the people.

The people of Massachusetts, at this moment, do not live in a republic. They no longer have a republican form of government. They no longer have self-government. They no longer have a legislature that makes the law. The laws in Massachusetts are being dictated by the judges--and that means that, for the people of Massachusetts, liberty is dead, constitutionalism is gone! Our way of life has already been destroyed.

And I don't understand how we can be so blind, so desperately self-centered that we allow a whole state to be surrendered to dictatorship, and we'll sit on our hands and act like it's business as usual.

Do we really think it's not going to come here? Do we really think that Utah will be spared, that any state will be spared? Well, in case you do, I invite you to remember what Rick, I'm sure, has talked about. What they did to the chief justice in the state of Alabama they mean to do, through the federal courts, to everyone who defies the abusive power of the judicial branch. And that means that it's not just the people of Massachusetts who have been deprived of self-government, it's all the people in this country.

"Oh, but Alan, you're exaggerating. You are an alarmist, you're an extremist." I feel proud sometimes when people say things like this about me, because I remember they used to say it about Ronald Reagan when he was decrying communism and such. I think to myself, well, that's where you have to be. It doesn't matter what they say, it just matters what the truth is.

See, I can actually demonstrate this truth pretty easily, because the reason that all of these abuses have occurred, that God has been driven out of public policy, that we are now denied the right to base our marriage laws on our religious faith and conviction, it's all due to, what? To this notion that they claim is part of our Constitution, that in America we must have separation of church and state. That's what they say.

And one of the ironies of this whole situation is that, contrary to what a lot of people say--and I think sometimes we, ourselves, accept this. We accept the notion that we've gotten into this bad situation because now Americans are corrupt, and now we've gotten all degraded and we just pursue material things and pleasure, and we don't care about decency, and that's why everything is being degraded and corrupted, and we're embracing pornography, and same-sex marriage, and abortion, and everything like this.

I have to tell you, this is a slander against the people of this country. It may be true that for 30 and 40 years, the entertainment media, and the news people, and all these people have been pushing all of this depravity on us--but do you know the remarkable thing? When they take polls of the American people, wherever they take them, in every state, all over the country, you find overwhelming majorities of people who believe in God, who oppose same-sex marriage, and who don't believe we should be killing our children in the womb!

We live under a regime in which all these immoral things have been embraced because courts have imposed them, not because the people have embraced them. A matter of fact, in the case of abortion and same-sex marriage, in every case when, on a state level, these issues have been put to the people, they have rejected both these things. In the two years before Roe vs. Wade was passed, as I recall, there were referendum on the issue of abortion in almost every state in the country, and it was rejected! There have been referenda on the issue of same-sex marriage, and it has been rejected! It is not the people who are embracing this corruption! It is being forced upon them by an abusive elite who tell us that, somehow or another, this must be done because we don't have the right to "impose religion" on people, we don't have the right the "legislate morality," there must be "separation of church and state."

Here's a simple question for you, though. Where does the separation of church and state come from? They say it's in the Constitution. Have any of you read the Constitution? I'm sure many of you have. I have read it. It's a short document. Unlike some of the documents of the Founding period, it's actually fairly easy to read. The Federalist Papers, some of their correspondence--they sometimes wrote in what we would consider a fairly flowery style in those days, and it can be a little difficult to follow, but the Constitution's not that way. A matter of fact, I think that Strunk and White would be proud of the Constitution. It is fairly short and to the point.

I've been through it many times. I could probably read through the whole thing right here and now. It wouldn't take us more than what, forty minutes? It's the shortest constitution, I think, in history--and certainly the shortest one that's ever been the subject of a real functioning government. It's not hard. And those of you who have been through it many times, you have found many things in there. You have found establishment of the executive, and the Congress, and the judicial branch. The president's gotta be 35. You've found how the Congress should be elected. You've found all kinds of wonderful, interesting, plainly laid out details. Guess what you haven't found? You have scoured it from one end to the other. You have looked at the sections, you have looked at the amendments, you have gone over it word by word by word, and not on a single page of it have you found any mention of the separation of church and state! It is not in the Constitution!

Oh, no. See, I can hear them again coming at me over my ignorance. I must have been badly educated, they say, because clearly I must understand that it's right there in the First Amendment, where it says that there can be no established religion in America--that's it! The Establishment Clause! That's the secret! That's what they base the whole thing on!

It's interesting, y'all, that, apparently, our judges and lawyers refer to things in the Constitution, but they don't bother to read it. Why? Because if any of them read it, they would discover that that's not what the words say.

And here, by the way, I'm not talking about "that's not what the words mean." I didn't say that, did I? You can get into a disputes over what words mean, but in this particular clause, it is quite clear what the words mean, and that is not what they [the judges and lawyers] say.

Let's go through these words. The first words of the First Amendment to the Constitution:

"Congress. . . ."

Is that a hard word? Are we having trouble with the meaning of Congress? As I often tell people, Congress is that place we elect people to every few years, and they go there and forget where they came from. Oh, you don't have anybody like that in Utah! I know this, but other states suffer from this problem.

"Congress shall. . . . "

Now, I will confess there was a time in the history of our country when we would have had a much more intimate familiarity with the word "shall." Some of us still do, because we know the "thou shalt nots" and the "thou shalts." And so, we're fairly comfortable with this word "shall." It's a future imperative. It kind of implies that you are commanded to or are forbidden to do something that has a future reference for your actions in the future.

"Congress shall make. . . ."

Is this subject to a lot of interpretation? Is this difficult in its meaning? I will go to school and get my PhD so I can understand this word.

"No. . . ."

All right! Now we get to the hard part. "No" is difficult.

And I say that "no" is difficult, y'all, because I have children, and have been trying to teach them the meaning of this word for many years! I have a 22-year-old son. There are days when I think he still doesn't get it. But that is because, as I often tell people, he hasn't yet been in the workplace. First time the guy who signs your paycheck says "no," it's wonderful how the mind focuses on the real meaning of this word, and, thereafter, you get it.

Since many of us have been in that situation for most of our lives, we kind of got it a long time ago--and it's not that hard. "No." That means that whatever is described by this word shouldn't be there.

"Congress shall make no law. . . ."

Well, in a simple sense, that's what the Constitution's all about, right? Making laws, those rules that are made by our legislators. It's in particular reference to that legislature that they are applying this phrase. That might require a little dictionary work, but it's not subject to a lot of interpretation.

"Shall make no law respecting. . . ."

All right! Here's a word that you might argue over, but here's the wonderful thing about it: nobody ever has. In every judgment, in every interpretation, this word has been taken to mean only one thing: "concerning, on the subject of, with regard to." I think that's because they were afraid to even suggest the other possibility. Because, if you want to try the other possibility, "Congress shall make no law respecting" could mean "Congress shall make no law that has any respect for it." Whoa. That may be what some of them want it to say, but that's not what it says. No one ever tried that.

"Congress shall make no law" on the subject of, with regard to, concerning, "an establishment of religion."

Now, I'll admit you might need to do a little research to get the full meaning of this phrase, but two things are true: first, you could do an easy primer by going back and looking at the governments that had been established in most of the states at the time the amendment was passed. That ought to tell you something, see. They had established churches in almost all of the states at the time this amendment was passed.

But even if you don't know the meaning of an establishment of religion, you can still understand the phrase. Why? Because you know one thing: whatever that means, Congress is not supposed to make any laws about it. That means there can be no lawful basis for dealing with it at the federal level. And in case you wonder about this power of government--because that's what it is. The first words of the First Amendment do not apply to a right, they apply to a power of government. The power to make laws is not a right, it is a power of government.

Now, this power of government has been taken from the federal government. It would be right to ask, "Where is it? Does it still exist?" Well, according to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, all those powers not delegated by the Constitution to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people.

That means that this power, which was withheld from the federal government, resides in the hands of our state governments and the people of the states. It is not in the hands of the Congress, it is not in the hands of the president, it is not in the hands of the federal judges. It is in our hands and the hands of our state governments!

Still, now that we've gone through this embarrassing thing--we've read the Constitution--I suppose I ought to establish our right to do so. There are people who will try to pretend that the only folks who get to say anything about the Constitution are black-robed judges and lawyers. It's kind of hard for me to accept this. You know why? Well, first, because I know the history. Who ratified the Constitution? Was it black-robed judges and lawyers? Did they write the Constitution, and then hand it to a panel of jurists to decide whether it was acceptable? No, they did not.

The Constitution became the Constitution, the law of the land was accepted in fact as the basis and frame of government, only after it had been ratified directly by the people of the United States, in conventions specially chosen for that purpose!

That means that the Constitution is not, in the final analysis, to be judged by the judges. It's not to be judged by the lawyers. It's to be judged by the people and their elected representatives. We are the ones who have the final say, not the judges!

And just in case there's any doubt--and this anticipates a little bit the remedy to this problem--it's very clear that that's still the case, because the power to deal with the judges when they abuse the Constitution has been explicitly left in the hands of our representatives. But I'll talk about this a bit later.

We need now to focus on the fact that, if you go back to the Constitution, there is no basis for the claim that it requires separation of church and state. The only thing that it makes clear is that, with respect to those issues that arise from any question of establishment of religion, those issues are to be decided by the state governments of the people, not by the federal government.

You know why they did this? Historically, it's pretty clear. It's because the great wars that had occurred in Europe over religion--they were great and terrible wars, by the way. If any of you have ever read about them, they were wars in which heinous and barbarous things took place, things that are redolent, unfortunately, of what is happening in the Middle East these days, where folks not only kill each other, but abuse each other, tear up the bodies, destroy and desecrate. I mean, the passions of hatred and animus that were evinced during the wars of religion in Europe were terrible to behold.

The Founders wanted to avoid this in America, and they knew that the root cause of those wars had been the effort of sovereigns to impose their religion on the states, provinces, and cantonments of their country. And what did they do? They wrote a constitution that made it clear: the national government is not allowed to impose its will upon the people in matters of religion!

Why have we sat back and allowed the very tyranny they fled from in Europe to be established by judges in the United States? We should be ashamed of letting ourselves be enslaved once again by the very evil that led people to come to these shores in the first place. But we have been. We have been.

The Constitution was established to prevent it. We have ignored it. We have allowed the judges to usurp our power. Do you know how they got this power? They stole it from us, and then they lied about the theft!

Some people will say, "Oh, that's precedence. We have to look at the long train of precedence, look at those Supreme Court decisions about school prayer and all of this. That's the law." How can we accept this notion when we just went through the branches of government and what they're supposed to do? In order for the judges' decision to be the law, there must be a basis for it in law or constitution.

Now, there can be no basis for the decision of these federal courts in federal law because Congress can't make a law on the establishment of religion. So, we know there's no federal law on this subject--it's forbidden by the Constitution--and we just discovered that there's no basis for it in the Constitution! If these judges have made decisions that have no basis in the law or in the Constitution, how can you tell me that their word is law? If their word is law, then the law is no longer made by our representatives. If their word is law, then we don't know what the law is until they speak. We've then become like the people in ages past, subject to the whims of their tyrants, never knowing from one moment to the next what the law shall be because their masters haven't spoken yet.

Is this what America is supposed to be? Because if it's not what it's supposed to be, it is what it has become. And it's not on a minor issue, but on what our Founders clearly regarded as the seminal and most important right of all: the right to honor God according to our conscience as a people--a right which they protected, first of all, by taking the power to abuse our religious beliefs out of the hands of the federal government, and leaving in our own.

Now, it's clear, then, that we have gone from being a people governed by Constitution to being a people in danger of being subject to a dictatorship of the judiciary.

And I say this advisedly. I can no longer have patience, because people used to call these guys activist judges. They're not activists, they're tyrants! They're not activists, they're dictators! We need to call them by their right name, or we won't understand what they're doing. They are abusing, not enforcing the Constitution of the United States. They are ignoring its clear, plain language--and we have only, under these circumstances, we have only one obligation. It is not the obligation to obey, it is the obligation to refuse to surrender our constitutional right!

Now, before one jumps to any conclusions, I would like to point out that our Constitution provides us with the means to do this on a right and proper basis, because in Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution (which establishes the Supreme Court of the United States), jurisdiction is given to the Court over a variety of cases, and once that jurisdiction is granted, it is granted in the following language. In all the cases, they describe them, and so forth. It says the Supreme Court shall have jurisdiction in these cases "with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."

Do you understand the importance of those words? I'll say it again: the Supreme Court gets jurisdiction over the cases that come to it under the Constitution, "with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." Why doesn't anybody read this document?

You know, I know that, when I started talking about this a while back, you go to people on the Hill, they didn't even know this! They hadn't noticed this! They hadn't applied it, even the ones who knew it!

Right there in the Constitution, it says that cases involving an establishment of religion, the Establishment Clause, cannot be subject to federal jurisdiction--yet, the courts have been asserting that jurisdiction.

It is also in the provision that Congress has the right to withhold from the jurisdiction of the courts those cases which it judges to be suitable for that action. You know what that means? That means that in order to solve this problem of abuse, a very simple step is required. The Congress of the United States must remove from the jurisdiction of the federal courts all of those matters that, by virtue of the First Amendment, aren't subject to their jurisdiction. It's a very simple matter. Now, this is where I think that the key to the present situation comes in. Guess what? We talk sometimes about impeachment, we talk about amendments like the Federal Marriage Amendment (which, by the way, I think is very necessary, and we ought to be supporting it). But, in this particular case, we have had a school prayer decision, the Bible taken out of schools, the courts coming in and declaring that you can't even pray at football games, and all of this done under the Establishment Clause. By removing these cases from the jurisdiction of the federal courts, guess what the Congress in one stroke will have done? It will have wiped off the books every single one of those cases.

ALL of them will fall! ALL of them will be null and void!

We will have children who can pray and athletes who can go down on their knees and ask for God's help. We will live in a country in which again we can respect our faith and God's law. And, to top it all off, unlike the impeachments, unlike the amendments to the Constitution, this can be done by a simple majority vote in the Congress of the United States.

People always ask me, "What can we do? What can we do?" It's very simple. You've got to demand that your representatives in Congress take this action. You've got to demand that they represent you as they're supposed to represent you. They are not supposed to sit in Congress as a simple element of the federal government, they are to sit in Congress as the representatives of this people. They are to stand in Congress in defensive of our rights--and right now, the courts have been destroying one of our most fundamental rights, and it can and must be defended by our elected representatives.

It's a very simple thing. There are bills on the table right now, introduced by Congressman Aderholt, I think, in the House, introduced also in the Senate by his colleague Shelby, carefully crafted by folks who have worked with Judge Moore and others, meant to achieve this very purpose. In the fall of this year, as I understand it, and I've talked to a lot of people, we may not have the votes in the fall of this year, I hate to tell you, to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment. As a matter of fact, I'm chagrinned at this, but as far as I can tell, nobody expects that there will in fact be an end to the blocking third that the Democrats command on this question.

So, what does that mean? Well, right now, we are going around, we are saying, "Vote for the Federal Marriage Amendment." That's right. People are signing on board, politicians are proving themselves to us by signing on to the Federal Marriage Amendment--"We're with you! We're with you!"--and all the time, they know that when the smoke clears, they'll vote for this, it'll fail. And then they'll say, "Well, we tried, but those bad old Democrats wouldn't let us do it," and it will be all over.

You might say that it will be all over for the Federal Marriage Amendment. No, y'all, it will be all over for marriage. See, because, the fact that the Federal Marriage Amendment doesn't pass doesn't mean that all of these people who are going into courts all over the country suing for marriage licenses, that they're going to stop. They're going to be creating facts all over the place.

In order to stop this movement from destroying the moral institutions and moral foundations of the country, we need something that the Congress can in fact get done in the fall--and in terms of removing from the jurisdiction of the court these matters that have to do with the vital religious right and moral conviction of our people, they can take them from the dictatorial purview of the court by simple majority vote.

It's one of the reasons that we have been having these gatherings and trying to rally folks. It's one of the reasons we're joining with folks to try to have events that will call people to prayer and repentance, culminating in God and country rally in Washington, D.C., in October. We want people to gather, we want them to come together and give a demonstration of the truth that the people of this country want an end to the abuses of the federal government that seeks to drive God and decency out of our public life. We want an end to their dictatorship that seeks to destroy the moral institutions of our country. And we can achieve this not by some pie-in-the-sky maneuver, no, but by an action that is clearly within the constitutional purview of the Congress and that can be done by simple majority vote.

It means that if we stay involved, if we support those who need to be supported, we can in fact assure that this step will be taken vital to the defense of our religious conscience and all the institutions based upon it.

We have the message. The information's in your hands. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Because, what I have discovered is that people watch this situation. Many Americans are dismayed, they're feeling put upon, they don't know what to do. Well, you know what to do, and I think that it's clear that if we can spread this word, if we can gather support for this effort, then we will create the environment in which the majority in Congress feels called upon by the clear demand of our people to act.

But don't you see? That's what government is supposed to be in this country. Everybody acts as if we can have a government that's going to be better than our people. But that's not what's supposed to happen. Representative government, that's what it's supposed to be. Now, right now, I think we have a government that's actually worse than our people, that has fallen below the level of our faith, it has fallen below the level of our conviction, it has fallen below the level of our conscience and our decency. We can lift it up again, but only if we take a stand, only if we shake off the lethargy and complacency and preoccupation, and become involved in an effort that can produce results if we but demand them according to the Constitution.

And so, the question is put to you, what shall we do? Because the crisis is upon us, y'all. This nation is already in the midst of those things that shall decide, within the next couple or three years, what shall be the fate of our republic and our liberty. We still have time, but it is running out.

At one level, this is a bad thing, because it's obviously a dangerous moment. But at another level, it's a good thing. When the battle is finally joined, only then can it be won.

And if we are now and here willing to commit ourselves, this is a victory we can achieve. And it will not just be a victory for this moment, it will be a victory that reestablishes those foundations needed to assure that our children and their children will live in a country that still recognizes God, and in which we, therefore, could still recognize our freedom.

Is this not what we want for them? Is this not what, by our heritage, we are obliged to pass on to them? If so you believe, then now you must act. And if you do, I believe with all my heart that there's a God in heaven Who will second the motion. For, He has made Himself the issue, and we must stand forward to prove that as we claimed our rights by His authority, so we have not forgotten the respect that we owe to His name. In that respect, let us stand now with courage to reclaim our right of conscience, to reclaim our right of reverence, to reclaim that right to go down on our knees before the God to Whom we owe it all, so that we may stand in liberty to represent again, not just for ourselves, but for all that humanity, which, in our great diversity, we represent the last best hope, the true great destiny of our humanity.

God bless you.