a lot of people will have smart phones in their pockets that had a large enough screen you can read donner and have the data plan so there's opportunities for people to do more reading. maybe it's in the ten minutes on the train and or moments in their day they might not otherwise have been lugging around a book and then also with

these interactive screens we mentioned earlier the exciting things you can do, starting to do more multimedia with the book and connecting the books together and doing who notes and annotations and that kind of stuff is also very exciting. >> one of the things interesting listening to you folks -- negative spencer and i think to be to teach in central florida -- one of the interesting things listening to you is almost as if there's a conversation not happening. [laughter] life mean, given we spend a lot of our time looking into a room of her vibrant young people who immediately began falling asleep i know the way we talk doesn't always hit with the with the rest of the world thinks. at the same time, you've walked into a room when you hold up your book i can hear people's eyes rolling. [laughter] you read that? there's no footnotes. [laughter] so i'm wondering, do you folks at google high your people to be

the people who interact between your power users and the folks like you who are actually designing these things? >> that's a good question. for product design in general the risk is you end up creating a product for yourself and not your actual users, right? >> you might want to talk more in the mic. >> our demographics at google are skewed in a certain way, so the risk is are we building a google books project for geeky engineers and we definitely don't want to do that. so what is the solution to that? we have a -- it's more communication coming to things talking to the actual historians and researchers. >> the guy doing digital media might have a solution which means haulier those guys. [laughter] >> that's a good solution, too. >> i'm available for the right stock options. [laughter] >> we do have a user ability team that we work with, so we will put an ad on craig's list

-- >> i would recommend hnet. [laughter] and i have a job. i'm not -- [laughter] -- i'm not looking out for the grad students. but what i say it seems, like to say, a usability team in which there's a lot of people in example you're thinking about it and talking to us saying we could encourage more reading a book is a simple text we want people to read these guys are thinking hnet book is useful for its few quotes and i want thousands of them to be used to aggregate broad arguments the make were students on its rolls. >> that is an interesting part, too, the diversity. it's interesting to think of books as a similar thing that books like "twilight" which is fiction, it's very different. the design for that is very different than a really dance academic book where your doing different things and you are like searching through it and trying to connect quotes and

altogether verses just passive reading. it affects the design -- for example device like the kindle works well for fiction but not scholarly work. the knee-jerk it is hard to flip through. we are definitely thinking through those issues and we have to come up with better solutions. >> thanks, and i just want to say we have two more questions and we are running a little short on time. so please, both to our customers and speakers. >> my name is sue collins. i library and actually and a practitioner library and, reference librarian. i use google books to find answers to questions like have never felt before. but i just have a suggestion for you when you say your next step, and you mentioned the social networking -- well, i lost interest right there because what you really need to do is develop a more powerful search engine so i can do proximity, so i can do adjacency, so i can do many more things that i can't do right now. all i can do is put in some words. i want this word in the title,

this word in the first paragraph and maybe these two words together in the third paragraph. that's what i want. i don't care what sally is reading. [laughter] i can look on her facebook page. that isn't what i use google books four. >> those are good suggestions and it comes down to the different use case -- >> it comes back to the previous speaker with usability, like where you get this input from? i'm sure you see the popularity of facebook and go that's great that's do that with google books but i don't know that is what many people want google books for. they wanted more 40 research database i think. and even if -- or use it like an index. i can fight a snippet of i think i can get that book for interim library and then use that to answer the question. >> definitely a scholars are power users and we need to continue to meet those needs. there's a difference if users the would be nice just you want to find a from book to read and support those users and make it easier for them to find books

for long before reading what we need to support both i think. >> thanks. >> my hunch is google took a library and as a proxy for scholars without further insulting librarians i don't think that's right. they had to talk to librarians but also scholars. i think they're starting to, but i would think they did in the past and there was a problem. >> i just want a bill last two. jim grossman from the library. i'm not a librarian. my first suggestion was that dan and branded the out to dinner tonight. i mean that more institutionally. the worst possible solution is to find out what sally is reading because when someone goes in -- when a student goes into a library or anybody working with a teacher in any environment, they are choosing books based on either with the library and suggests what the teachers it just seemed when you're going to end up with instead is what you already have with google, which is an algorithm based on market phenomenon them rather than on

expertise. and it seems to me that it ought to be possible for google to work with scholarly societies in all the disciplines to create an algorithm for google books that it all to create any way, but to create an algorithm for google books that would also include authority as well as market based phenomena. >> that's a good point. i want to build the tools of the people can build different collections and so, you know, someone might put together a different collection of romance novels or things that are fun, but when the tools to also work for serious scholarly work where the expert in a field can put together the definitive course list for a given topic. and then you mentioned authority works basically a reputation as important as well. so if we get to the world where there is margin notes and annotations, that's definitely important. you can imagine authenticating the author of the book is and give more weight to the person and as the user's comments those comments are voted up or down and and basically as the community validates that he contributed good thoughts to this conversation you can get voted out. so i think that's important.

>> [inaudible] -- how do you begin that conversation go? >> i think as far as connecting the dots? we start working -- on my front is building more tools google books to a large extent it's been focused on the engineering challenges of scanning the books. the next phase is making it easier for the community to organize those books and so the users can find the data they need. >> [inaudible] -- as opposed to people who know something [inaudible] >> i guess i'm using the word user as the people that know something about it as a subset of users. so the problem is more a matter of all the users organizing the data of building ways to identify those who you trust more than others. >> and on that note, i think we probably have to say that though this is a very valuable conversation to have, and we obviously need many more, maybe this is an opportunity to kind of begin those conversations within the society or elsewhere.

i just want to thank all of our speakers in one last time. [applause] thank all of you forst othe conference. >> thank you. es was great. [inaudible conversations]

in a few minutes the final hour-long debate between the candidates for the u.s. senate seat in massachusetts. that special election this tomorrow. and you will see results and hear from the candidates tomorrow night on the c-span

networks. before the final debate an update on the latest polls. >> , the margin of political ase in massachusetts covering the senate race. several polls were released today about the race including one for politico. what does it show? >> the poll shows scott brown republican is now in a sizable lead that is outside the margin of error which is to say this is over that three to four-point threshold where there is some mathematical terrines. so he appears to be strong going into the election day, which is shocking. even a week ago few democrats in washington conceded that brown had a chance to win. it was feared the race was quite a bit closer than expected. but very few people, democrats -- evin all of those thought the republicans would actually wind it he is riding on the wave of the voter discontent and running

against a fairly mediocre democratic opponent, and so it looks like he could pull off even more shocking offset. >> how are the campaign's reacting? >> the democrats scrambled in the past week to try to really drive up and sell to the alarm if he will shake and democrats out of their complacency by emphasizing some of the last favorable elements of his record. effect that the democrats are trying to point out why that is. brown and the republicans are just again riding the wave. they are enjoying a lot of energy from their supporters and just trying to maximize that and capture it going into the election day and not use that mojo if you will be for the voters go to the polls. >> was about the voters? what is the mood among voters?

>> recovery discounted and that is lebanon benefits. the congressman told me he is captured the motion of anybody that is angry about anything and so i think if you are angry at the status quo you are probably for scott brown. he's leading independent voters. his message is less ideological than a day's sending to washington and albeit the check safety valve of he will on the democratic majority. and the rest of the electorate and a democratic majority here in the state government and down in washington you are running as a republican than that is a pretty effective message saying you can take on the establishment that right now is very unpopular. >> jonathan martin of politico, thank you. >> good evening. im david gergen and what to welcome all of you to the closing debate among the candidates for next week's election to the united states senate.

this coming tuesday will be a crucial time here in massachusetts. voters will go to the poll and select a person who may well determine the outcome of the fight over health care legislation in washington at stake as well jobs, energy, the environment, abortion, war overseas. we have much to talk about tonight. moreover, the candidates in this election are seeking to fill a seat that is legendary in american politics. among its occupants have been john nance of the past from ted kennedy and his brother, john, to henry cabot lodge, charles sumner, daniel webster and john quincy adams. those are some shoes to fill. this debate is sponsored by the edward m. kennedy institute for the united states senate. we are gathered at the boston campus of the university of massachusetts, on whose land the kennedy institute will

eventually be built. and in order determined by lottery, let me introduce the three candidates here with us. scott brown, the republican candidate is in his third term in the state senate, representing the norfolk bristol and middlesex district. he previously served three terms in the house. martha coakley, the democratic candidate is the attorney general of massachusetts. she was elected in 2006 after serving eight years as district attorney of middlesex county. joseph kennedy, no relation to the late senator is an independent candidate who's a member of the national libertarian unit party. he works in information technology and. in preparing questions, i have consulted with members of the media and other people whose judgment i trust. the questions themselves are known only to me. to the audience, once again,

please hold your applause until the end. we will begin with a series of questions to the candidates, leaving tiny trough for a response and discussion. by the lottery, the first question will go to mr. brown and to ms. coakley and mr. kennedy and will rotate the order later on the candidates will have time to ask each other questions. so, let us begin. to the candidates, president obama and democrats in congress are now in the final stages of hammering out a national health care bill. there is a very real possibility that the winner of this election will be in a position to ensure passage of the bill or its defeat. do you want voters in massachusetts to see next tuesday's vote as a referendum on this national health care bill? mr. brown? >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here and i went thank kennedy institute and boston. thank you for the question.

the health care bill proposed in washington is broken. the backroom deals, nebraska, louisiana we all know about it. we need to start over. we have health care already in massachusetts. 90% of the people are already in short. we did it with the help of the senate president and others. we don't need what is being pushed in washington on massachusetts. half a trillion dollars cut from medicare, you're going to look at blogger lines and less coverage. we know we need to reform pricing and it's something we are doing shortly but today we will have a one-size-fits-all plan in congress is going to come down here in massachusetts and heard what we have, that is one of the difference between martha coakley and ipt were talking to a trillion dollar health care plan, half a trillion dollars in medicare cuts at a time we just needed. i would propose actually going and allowing the states to do it individually with the government incentivizing it. similar to what we did here. we could export out what we've done and show them how to do it, so i'm looking forward to having the opportunity to be the 41st

vote and make sure that we get that back to the drawing board. >> this coakley. >> thank you comedy for hosting us these evening. i would be proud to be the 60 votes to make sure we get health care reform we badly need. we've taken the lead in massachusetts and getting it to be in short and now we are attacking costs to make sure we provide for transparency and competition to bring costs down. we now spend $2.6 trillion a year on health care in this country. we do not get our money's worth. we do not have transparency competition. we do not have come for the money we spend now, the kind of health care that we can and should have, as senator kennedy said it should be a right, not a privilege. i believe that we can, buy passing health care in washington, and doing it incrementally, as apparently we are going to do, we will set the groundwork for a revolutionary way in which we provide for coverage for those who can't get coverage now, preexisting injuries and make sure we keep

costs down and people can keep the health care they have. costs are going up eight to 10%. the status quo is simply unsustainable. >> mr. kennedy. >> the healthcare bill going on is a travesty, and as much as i would like to think there would be 41st vote against it which i would love to be, the reality is we are seeing votes bought. every single time this bill has gone through we have seen another person failed because it has bought. the issue today is not whether who is going to vote down health care. health care will pass and will be bought because the politics as usual going on in washington. the question is who is going to work to repeal it once it passes? we have an issue going on today in government, and the issue is government is too big. this bill will cost $1.2 trillion, so to explain what that number means, every year our federal income tax is only $1.1 trillion for every single person in america. what that means is an 11%

increase on everyone at minimum to pay for this bill. we can't afford it. we shouldn't do it. health care in massachusetts is going up rapidly and will let the government level as well. >> mr. brown, you ought to follow. >> we have insurance here in massachusetts. we have some of the best doctors, nurses, hospitals in the country. that's why people actually come here. not only is this bill going to be bad for our state. my job is to be the senator from massachusetts. i'm not going to be really subsidizing. what we have been doing for the next, but a number, three, four, five years. we will be subsidizing what other states have failed to do. >> do you agree with that, ms. coakley? >> i don't. i spoke to a woman on the campaign trail was husband is out of work. she doesn't have health care, she is to children with pre-existing injuries, very rare that even the doctors of massachusetts can't address and even though they refer to her to specialists the insurance company won't pay for it. the system is broken.

massachusetts will benefit with $500 million closing the doughnut hole for prescriptions for seniors. it's a good plan for massachusetts. >> why is it -- >> it is a that plan because it will hurt jobs when we can't afford. >> ekstrand, y -- >> because we have a competing plan of the government auction goes and they have the benefit is directly to compete with plants we already have. we've taken great care to make sure that we have fantastic plans here from the so-called plant's union members were getting. business is down to the commonwealth care subsidized plans. but the biggest problem, and martha talked about the 500 million senator kerrey is bringing back, we shouldn't have to go to washington every time to have a couple to get handouts from washington. we should be to fix the problems of our own and we can do that very easily. >> ms. coakley, can you promised the voters of massachusetts that you are going to vote for this national health care plan regardless of how this change here in coverage of abortion? >> i think the plan -- what i said is i support the plan coming out of the samet --

>> what it becomes more restrictive as in the house, the stupak and? >> i said i would not vote for a plan that has stupak -- >> he would then become the 41st senator against. >> i don't believe that is the choice to be it's clear from one of your body said -- >> when you leave for the senate bill. >> or some reasonable facsimile. >> excuse me, it's not quite be a senate bill. it's a conference committee now. the bill is going to be a compromise and bottom line is regardless what version comes out this bill is not good for massachusetts. it's winter cost jobs. it's going to cost very real jobs at a time when we cannot afford it. >> with me ask this question on a lot of people's mind. you have said you are for health care reform just not this bill. we know from the clinton experience if this bill fails it could be another 15 years before we see a health care reform effort again in washington. are you willing under those circumstances to say i going to be the person? i'm going to sit in teddy kennedy's see and be the person to block it for another 15.

>> it's not the kennedy said. it's the people's seat. and they have a chance to send somebody donner was going to be an independent voter and thinker and going to look out for the best interest of the people of massachusetts. the way this bill was configured i would like to send it to the drawing board because i believe people should have insurance, not just this particular bill because it is not good for the entire country. talking about an additional trillion dollars of kosko have a trillion and medicare cuts and military people if you're veterans you are going to have cuts in tricare and it's not good. we need to go back to the drawing board. nobody has a conference in this bill right now. >> let me ask ms. coakley and mr. kennedy if you to jump and i welcome you. ms. coakley, this morning the head of the afl-cio, richard trumka, said that it would be a recipe for disaster if the final health care bill includes a tax on high-end insurance plans. what is in the senate bill. senator obama says he is for that tax on high plans.

you got a labor support, you've got your president beyond the position. where do you come down? >> the president also said he with thought there was a lot of room to determine exactly what was going to be in those cadillac plans. maybe the broad net should include a couple toy iotas or something. so it would not be as the current definition. i don't agree with it and writing there are different ways we can pay for the plan. >> brief intervention. >> this is at about cars it's about health care. at the plan we are talking about here -- it is going to be taxing those cadillac plans for good union members who fought so hard for good faith bargaining to get the plans. in addition to that, how are you going to pay for this? cut in half a trillion dollars out of medicare and also going to be taxing people not on my watch and wait to get a priority to make sure we have a form of coverage states can't rely on and have the flexibility to be

part of. not a one-size-fits-all for the entire country at the her to states and individual rights to free market and free enterprise. >> i'm going to turn to you, ms. coakley, and you can wind your answer and all of you talked about the economy and voters in this commonwealth of course put jobs right at top of the list. everyone is worried about 10% unemployment nationwide. but it's also true that this terrible economic situation of workers find themselves in really comes at the end of a lost decade for american workers. there has been nationwide no net job growth since december, 1999, and middle class families, when adjusted for inflation, have not seen their incomes rise. what are your plans on the short term, but what is the answer to the long-term challenge for jobs for america? >> exactly. and if i can of the congressional budget office says within ten years that health care plan will be deficit mitchell. and one of the reasons we've had the issues we have now are

because during the last decade we haven't had regulations that are kept the economy in check on wall street. with credit for lending. with the bush cheney's tax policy that supported the house and the society. and by the way that is what scott brown still wants to do is return to. he wants to go back to the drawing board. indeed he wants to go back to the bush through coaching any policies that provide for the wealthiest. i support it and i said i supported plan that will provide tax relief for the middle class bill will allow middle class families to keep more money in their paychecks to provide for tax credits for college, to provide tax credits and more lending opportunities for small businesses which will be the engine there will get this economy into a state moving again. mr. kennedy? >> wages have not risen in america since 1972 so it's not just the last ten years. we've lost the last 40 years. what we need to do is get the economy going. and the way that we do that is cut spending. harding did it in the 20's.

we haven't done it since. the increase government programs and continue to spend money on the war and spend money on the entitlement plans. these things draw money from the private sector into the public sector and year after year after year we see the public sector borrowing. we see people not getting real wage increases. that is what is going on. until people are willing to cut spending, cut entitlements and stop going to the war around the world, which is extremely, extremely expensive, we are not to fix this economy. there is no way, shape or form. we have jobs in government, and number of bureaucracies of the government, we have wasteful spending up in government and nobody is holding them accountable. somebody needs to stop the war. somebody needs to hold back the entitlement programs and somebody needs to give the money back to the taxpayer. >> mr. brown? >> thank you. congressional budget office is going to take ten years. so we are going to be paying for our plan, basically subsidizing

other states for the next four or five years and eventually break even. that sounds like a real bargain i tell you. i would rather send it back to the drawing board. and regarding tax cuts, there's no one listening right now that believes, martha, you were the tax cutting candidate. i have a history of cutting taxes, holding the line on spending. i've been up with a band of brothers fighting on the hill against a machine who wants to raise your taxes, governor patrick and everybody else, and we can do better on that regard. regarding your comments consistently about bush-cheney this, bush-cheney that, you can run against bush-cheney, scott brown. i drive a truck and is it is over 200,000 miles on it now, and you're not running against them, you're running against me and the difference between you and me is that you want to raise taxes to .1 trillion per congressional budget office of items that you in fact work very, very vocal about during the primary. nothing's changed, and it's not to .1 trillion, what's the actual number you want to raise

people's taxes? >> if i may remind, -- respond it doesn't matter how much you say to .1 trillion, it doesn't make it accurate or close to accurate. there isn't a number, it isn't a number because what i support are in fact relief for the middle class. the cuts that president obama supports for the middle class, a health care plan that will be self supporting. your response to health care cost is to make sure that we lead insurance companies provide for mammograms and cervical screening and hospitals -- hospice care for seniors. that isn't a good way to go if we want health care reform. we have an energy problem that will make polluters pay. and those numbers then disappears we are down to zero. scott, you're the one who voted while you were in the senate for over $7 billion of spending in the commonwealth. you voted for $300 million of these so let's get the rhetoric and reality street. i am not taxing and spending. i've been a very conservative and fiscally responsible attorney general and brought back a bill billion dollars to

the commonwealth as attorney general. >> once again there's no one watching that thinks you are a tax cutter, and i never voted for a tax increase while in a locked office, and very proud of fighting the line on taxes. and the items that you're talking about i think is quite frankly outrageous that you would say that i supportive of women's rights and protecting mammogram coverage is of course in basic coverage is all of our health plans we are proposing. when we refer mandates and look at them to save money that's very important. but the healthcare bill that door pushing in washington, and you will support and you said, in fact raises the age of getting a mammogram coverage from 40 to 50. it sets limits on pap smear testing. it cuts have a trillion dollars from seniors for medicare. i think there will be hurt quite a bit more than having the connector authority review mandates to make sure we don't have to think chiropractic care is a mandated thing just because people have good lobbyists of

that beacon hill. we can do better with the plan we have. we don't need to rely on a plan in washington -- >> we can agree to disagree, scott but let's be clear on the facts, and you can distort my record and not be accurate about your own. i haven't proposed any new taxes except for those on the wealthiest top 2% of the country. that's all i've ever said, that's all i've ever talked about. so let's be clear on the facts. what i propose is going forward to making sure we can afford for health care, we can afford it now. it's eight to 10% a year giving up. >> excuse cap-and-trade -- >> it's not a tax. >> is a tax. and it's been to cut medicaid by half a trillion dollars. you are in favor of the expiring tax cuts to inspire the marriage penalty is coming back -- >> okay. >> -- excuse me, i don't mean to be read what the child care tax credit is coming back and --

[inaudible] [laughter] >> i'm sorry. >> all right. listen, i hear you all talking a lot about tax cuts to create jobs. and the importance of that. but there is a second issue out there that is looming and it is called the deficits. now, the truth of the matter is just over the horizon are these massive deficits. not only 4.1 trillion now, but every year the next ten years the obama administration says will have a trillion dollars more of deficits. if we are going to cut taxes and not cut spending very much, how are we going to solve this problem? first answer goes to mr. kennedy. >> the answer is and i've been saying this entire candidacy, nobody to my right has been willing to talk about spending cuts. and everybody who says -- >> would you cut? >> i don't think we have enough time that i'm voting to cut -- i'm going to cut obamacare when it passes, the department of education, and going to cut every single had a job that is out there that exists today.

i will audit the federal reserve and i will see to it that if there is corruption and the federal reserve that we cut that as well. i will cut the war, i will stop spending money on the war. we have people over in japan, we have people in germany that these and wealthy nations today. and you know who pays for it? we pay for it. everyone is incorrect when they say that cutting taxes creates jobs. that is not the truth. cutting spending, cutting spending hysterically is what creates jobs. when you cut taxes and you don't cut spending, we did what we had in the bush administration, which is what bankrupt our country. >> mr. brown. >> thank you. we need to do a jfk-style tax cut for businesses and family still will create jobs. we tried everything already. we've done a stimulus one martha is considering stimulus ii. she was in favor of the first one. we are looking at 12 trillion counting on the national debt. wouldn't it be nice to maybe try something a little bit

different? because the stimulus bill isn't working, has created one new job to read the senate president will tell you governor patrick has that 49 out of 50 releasing the money we have so how can we talk about another stimulus bill when the first one hasn't worked? let's think differently. let's go back to the basics but really it we have to hold the line on spending first of all and give the president of the line-item veto country top to bottom review of every federal program and squeeze out waste like the president's leadership on those issues, so it's very important to do that and that is the difference between martha and meek. her tax proposals will not help at all they will add to the deficit. the health care bill will add 1 trillion plus dollars. the cap-and-trade will increase taxes. that's the major differences between martha and me. >> ms. coakley. >> the question was about the deficit and let's remember a little history here that when the democrats the presidency before george w. bush we were on

a pay-as-you-go for spending. you either have to have it in the budget or make sure there was a revenue source. that completely went out the window with the bush-cheney administration. so we have deficit spending with reckless spending, and regulate its been, on a regulated wall street that got us into the problem, and to me it is astounding that scott brown will stand here and say that this problem must have just come out of nowhere, and his solution is to do nothing except to make sure that we do some kind of across-the-board tax cut. it's not going to work and what i said and he knows it in the past is the way to get tax revenues up to. we need to get the engine of this economy running again, get people back to work to get tax revenues -- >> how would you get tax revenues of? are you going to increase taxes? >> no, getting people back to work and who are than paying taxes. >> president obama made the vow no tax increases on any couple earning less than to under $50,000. do you join him in that pledge, senator?

>> i do. >> you do? if you think you can balance the budget? >> not right away because we didn't create overnight. it was greeted by a reckless administration. we have a lot of work to do including health care costs, energy cost. those are all complicated problems to be addressed. >> mr. brown, you ought to jump in. >> you have to deal with reality, martha. the tax-cut talk about will create an immediate jolt to the economy and create jobs. and as jfk called for, across-the-board tax cuts will create jobs. it isn't a gimmick. it is reality. and to think it is all about bush-cheney there's plenty of blame to go around and i'm not going to be living and working on the mistakes of the past. i'm working to address the mistakes of today. and there are clear differences between the two of those on the simple issues, and if you think a tax cut is not going to work then i think you are sadly mistaken. >> mr. brown, let me ask you both this question. we've gone through tax cuts in the bush years, and we did not have this booming growth. but you have assumed. and the congress has also been -- people have been freed in

washington take on the entitlement programs. social security, medicare and medicaid. now i want to know if you are going to have the courage when you go there to take on the entitlement programs or are we once again going to duck and see these costs of rough? >> i'm the only one here who has talked of spending, and i've done at the entire campaign. you know why? because spending is difficult to cut. it's difficult to look at the people of the audience and say we have to cut entitlement programs and there's a lot of fat we can trim at the same time. it's the truth. we have to do it. the reason why nobody wants to talk about cutting spending is because it cost them votes. but you know what, every single time you go out there and say i'm going to cut your taxes. i'm going to raise retirement programs, you are just lying to get votes. we have to cut spending. i just -- >> medicare, medicaid and social security, you are willing to cut the? are you wanting to take on the entitlement programs? >> i am ready to take on the entitlement programs. i've said before -- >> senator gregg filed a bill that will actually be similar to

the base closure bill pure get a band down vote, you look at the entitlements come to have a bipartisan commission that will actually look at everything and make a recommendation to us. and i look forward to that opportunity to get my input or not. >> and if that commission can with tax increases to the support? >> i would not. i think we can do better. i would not support it but i'd certainly look at entitlements and make that recommendation. at least we have the choice and that is what is important. >> you know, david, we spent a lot of taxpayer dollars on bailing out big corporations, millions and billions of dollars on t.a.r.p. that didn't have to be spent if we could have done better regulation. so i am not been to turn around and say yes, we are going to take the social security from -- for our greatest generation for folks with whom we have a contract and depend upon them on their prescriptions to get there has we've reached an obligation on that, and i think we have to start with where the blame falls and how we turn this around.

>> bottomline, ms. coakley, argues -- what is your position on whether the congress ought to consider and be open to reforming social security, medicare and medicaid in a way that brings down the cost curve on all three programs, are you opposed to that? >> i believe that everything can be looked at but i will say this as i stand here today i think that if we look at new generations coming in who don't have this entitlement this is not the first place i am going to look, david. >> the visit a place you are willing to look because that is where the money is. >> and a stand that it is a good reason for that and it is more than just the budget and how we got into the deficit problem. it's about the obligations we have to our senior citizens and people in this country who depend upon that for health care. >> last comment. >> it's not blame it is solving the problems of today and you have to pay top to bottom review of every program to make sure we can -- as the president called for i actually agree with him that we do that to fight any waste. we've done it. we can do it in washington.

we need to forget about planning people. there's plenty to go around. we all know it. let's try to solve the problems of today and we need to look at entitlements and every other program and project in washington. >> let's move on. unfortunately, i would love to stay and work through a lot of these more deeply. but the clock is working in another direction. so, i would like to go to a new question to read mr. brown, this goes to you first and we will work our way through. after the incident with the donner trying to take on a plan of detroit, the president declared last week that we are on a -- we are on a war against al qaeda, strong words. how do we win this war, mr. brown? >> thank you. we are at iraq and not only is it coming to of airports and shopping malls, it happened here as you all know the attempt by the person to tell our kids at the mall. i'm glad he finally realized we are at war. he was a little slow i thought reacting in that situation. one of the main differences

between martha and knees shelia this that these individuals like the christmas bomber should be constitutional rights, attorneys, lawyers said they can take fifth and treat them like ordinary criminals. i think they should be treated as enemy combatants. it should be interrogated presumed to the laws of the land and made sure that we find out exactly if there is any other attacks coming. that is a major difference between martha and me. take khalid sheikh mohammed. half a billion dollars is going to cost but giving constitutional rights he is taking the fifth and instead of as getting information from him he's getting information from us and martha agrees. i don't. and enemy combatants treated as such and go through a military tribunal, and we can do better. as a war we have to fight and with my military experience and the training i have on issues of war and peace i'm looking for to that opportunity. >> ms. coakley? genex before. there's nothing more important than keeping the country's eighth and homeland security allies save and we need to do it as smart as we can.

we've bet war since 9/11. there's no dispute about that. i worked as a district attorney and attorney general every day since columbine keeping kids a sense negative 11. working to make sure 9/11 never happens again allow our soil. and that means that we have to be smarter and work better to use better intelligence and analysis about where al qaeda is and how we will neutralize them and i'm surprised ascot because he is a lawyer and dustin since work for jag and understands what constitutional rights are about. i don't think is one of the supreme court justices said as a suicide pact we need to do whatever we can to keep our people say that we need to do it in a way that works. and so i think as we move forward we have to make sure that we have the right intelligence, we move properly and when we should treat people the military tribunals to that. when we can be very successful as we have been with richard reid, the issue bomber and civilian court.

>> mr. kennedy. >> if we want to secure the people of america we have to not say why are we at war with al qaeda. what we need to understand is why is al qaeda at war with us. the reality is it is because we occupations in the middle east. if you're growing up, if you are a little kid and have somebody from a foreign nation walking up and down your streets with a machine gun, you are going to grow up hating that country. you are just going to. then when you turn 15, 16, 17, it's quite easy to recruit you to come over and kill us. that is what is happening. that is what has happened again and again. the reality is if we want a safer country what we need to do is not occupy these lands. we need to take and pull back the individuals who are deployed over there today. we need to take some of the money used to pay for the deployment and use that money internally to secure our borders. if we actually focused on securing america and didn't go over there and interfere in all of these people's lives we would have fewer enemies and we would be concentrating our forces

where we need them which is an american. >> mr. brown. >> thank you. martha, thank you. i'm glad you recognize i service, look to the colonel for 30 years and now with jack and i deal on these issues and i don't recall any time be given constitutional rights to terrorists that were only entitled to hear in the united states citizens to think that we would give people who want to kill us constitutional rights lawyer at the end of at our expense instead of treating them as enemy combatants to get as much information as we can under legal means, it makes no sense to me and it shows me you do not quite understand the law when it comes to enemy combatants versus terrorists first united states citizens. >> ms. coakley. >> the reason we started the designation is so that we would have rules and regulations for our own soldiers safety to make sure we treated people appropriately and we still always will have the option if it makes more sense to get better information, better intelligence to treat people in

the military enemy combatant forum. >> i understand your differences on the legal treatment of prisoners. what i would like to understand and i don't is how you would windel war on the ground. >> thank you. i agree with the president. that is another difference between martha and me. i support his effort to finish the job in afghanistan and provide the tools and resources to the men and women and keep them safe. number two, the president of after four months what you need to do to finish the job and the job is what? make sure the taliban and al qaeda do not get nuclear weapons and export them around the world. it is pretty simple. how do you do it? mekouar we support of our troops and president unlike martha at a time of war pbr at war with our airports, with our shopping malls, and i have to be honest with you, folks as you are listening audience scared some of the policies i heard in your treatment of giving enemy combatants constitutional rights and cleaning them up.

i want to know when the next terrorist strike is going to happen and we are not going to find by the policies or pushing, number one and i support the president and i'm proud to do so. >> ms. coakley. >> in response to that certainly we have had almost 200 trial civilian trials that have been successful holding people accountable when they have been designated by the bush administration by enemy combatants but in guantanamo. they made the decision presumably the attorney general can do that and will do that. i don't agree with president obama's decision to send troops to afghanistan. so as a side note, you know, scott selectively picks and chooses whatever he thinks is apparently the right policy -- >> ms. coakley, how do you think we can succeed in afghanistan? >> in afghanistan, i think we've done what we are going to be about to do. >> you think we should come home? and i think we should plan an exit strategy, yes. >> how would we succeed? >> i'm not sure to succeed. if the goal and mission was to

go and because we believed that taliban was giving harbor terrorists we supported that, i supported that goal. they are gone. they are not there anymore. they are around them and, pakistan. let's focus efforts where al qaeda is and always decide -- >> would you and then send troops into yemen where al qaeda is? >> that is the point, this isn't about sending troops everywhere we think al qaeda may be. we have all kind of resources at our disposal including cia, were allies to work with us and the focus should be kidding the appropriate information on individuals who are trained to represent a threat to us and use the force necessary to go after those individuals. >> excuse me -- spec one brief intervention and we are going to move on. >> thank you. let me explain once again with the mission is to al qaeda and taliban move on pakistan, get the clear words and export them around the world, number one. and to think that al qaeda is not everywhere we are talking about and we should not be going and addressing these real

concerns i think it's naive. we have real problems -- >> and fairness ms. coakley you have a response. seabeck think it is likely to think we have the trustees and everywhere and they are of the best way to go after people who are terrorists would disappear into the light to do trainings and get on plans frankly with bombs in their shoes and other pieces of clothing -- >> excuse me just -- you are saying once we catch these people we are going to be giving them constitutional rights -- >> that's not what i said scott. >> new support khalid sheikh mohammed getting an attorney, the bomber on christmas the music that is okay. he should be cleared up and you didn't disagree. we should have taken the time and interrogated him properly to find out what is next. >> we apparently have information from him. either you or i know what that is. >> i tell you what, this is free constructive, but we are going to change the format a little bit. you can keep talking and that is we are going to allow each candidates -- this is unusual -- each candidate a chance to ask

the other two candidates the question and get a minute long response. we will start with ms. coakley. she will have the chance to ask mr. brown a question and mr. kennedy a question and somehow i think it may be a continuation of what they've been talking about. i am not sure. [laughter] >> or maybe not. scott, massachusetts you supported legislation that would allow hospital employees to deny emergency care to treat victims if it was their choice. you also in this campaign received the endorsement of the massachusetts right to life organization that said you will be a vote for right-to-life vote for life in the senate. do you accept their endorsement or disavow that? >> kristin gore, thank you for the question. i have a very big tent. i appreciated your buddies support because this isn't about democrats or republicans, independents, it is about everybody in welcome mat for the visa support as you do. you have many special-interest support rolling around right now as word of the machine to do just that and yes, i did vote on

a bill to allow women who are afraid to get treatment to get i supported that and i'm very proud of that vote and you and i both had the same position on abortion. that is roe v. wade is bill law of the land, did we have a very real difference and the difference is i mcginn tecum against partial birth abortion and you are not. >> that's not right. >> with all due respect you wrote an editorial anyone can go online and find when he actually criticized partial birth abortion the fact it is in fact not allowed. and we also have a difference in that i don't believe that federal funding of abortion should be allowed and i believe in a very strong parental consent notification law. somebody is being supported why emily's list you will go down as a social crusader to file the bills as you are obligated to as everybody else who supported by them is. i want to be a jobs to us and to think that i would even especially my two daughters here with all due respect to think i wouldn't allow them the opportunity if they were raped

to of the immediate attention i think is important even -- >> am i wrong in what that will allow it? >> evin treen fer -- evin treen fer i would do that -- >> the time is up. you sound like an appropriate time to respond and then ask mr. kennedy. >> am i wrong the ability filed allows emergency personnel to deny care if it is within their decision? >> yes, you're absolutely wrong. >> what is the amendment to? >> i'm not a defendant in the courtrooms of me answer the question. the amendment you are referring to our hospitals who have religious preferences not to perform abortions or provide those services -- >> emergency contraception. >> once again i'm not the defendant i would like the chance to answer the question. in fact i did vote for the ultimate bill be read the was filed and supported by many people. it passed and i was proud to vote for it and would do it again. >> you think it is eckert position to take a quick side

sought to be clear. >> to allow women to get emergency contraceptives if they've been raped, yes. >> and they can be turned away if it is to an individual? >> it's important duty to try to twist this bill around. i think you need to read the bill again. >> we would love another hour. ms. coakley, given the time constraints we are going to give to one question. i'm going to ask mr. kennedy if he would pose a question to either of the two candidates. >> okay. coakley, simple question for you. we have a health care bill in front of as that will cost $1.2 trillion. right now the total amount of money that is raised on the yearly basis by all taxes that come in via the federal income tax is at $1.08 trillion. so this is over a tenure period. are you willing to increase taxes on everyone 11% to pay for this health care bill because that's what it costs and it

won't be able to be done by just taxing the wealthy. >> know because i disagree with that premise and the facts in your question, joe. i appreciate that. i think everybody appreciates the health care needs reform and is complicated, and we can stand here all night and through numbers around and argue about it. but what it requires is getting down and figuring out as we did in massachusetts and we look at costs and as we go forward on the national but we can't afford not to do health care reform so we can figure out how we have to pay for it, what we will save by early prevention screenings the way in which we turnaround how we pay for the services. we pay for to much for the results we get in health care. >> to one the record the numbers and giving are the numbers from the government and the tax foundation. so -- >> and the congressional budget office says within ten years it will be deficit neutral, budget neutral and we will see the kind of things we want out of this, not just these dollars and cents on this side of the ledger. we will see people who now don't have insurance get it so the

cost will be down. they will be in the emergency rooms. we will see the people that pay out of their pockets to get the screenings insurance companies won't pay for it than the need less invasive procedures as a friend of mine found out. so the insurance company saves money on her while she pays $3,000 for a screening test. our system is upside down and it doesn't take care of the people it's supposed to. we can do it, get better results and save money. we are not going to do it overnight i agree. >> mr. brown you have a chance to ask one of the candidates a question and i can't guess which candidates that might be. [laughter] >> i will tell you will be martha. martha, we are both good people, that's the consensus on the trail. we just have differences, many differences. i happen to think you're wrong on the policies and one of the ms. issue on terror. you want to provide constitutional rights, and the combatants to treat them like ordinary criminals, and i don't. a little bit of a difference. simple question. khalid sheikh mohammed has been, he will be tried and new york at

taxpayer expense and you supported that and have made that very public. if in fact he's found guilty of killing almost 3,000 innocent men, women and children, should he get the death penalty? >> he will get the death penalty. >> do you agree with the fact that he should get the death penalty? >> yes because that is what the federal law says right now. >> to come out strongly say you do not support the death penalty. >> negative i don't support it it has limitations, i wouldn't vote for it but i understand that he is being tried now in federal court because he wasn't tried in a military tribunal as he sat in guantanamo. i said it's the attorney general's decision where to try and retrieve them successfully many times as i mentioned earlier the eshoo bomber richard reid almost over to eckert sidley internals decided by prior attorneys general under the republican administration and they've made the decision that this is where to go. it is their decision to make. if he's found guilty, and i

believe he will be and he's facing all kind of charges he's not going to be walking the streets of manhattan he will fight the death penalty. that is the law of the land and i support the law of the land even though i disagree -- >> he was treated as an enemy combatant -- >> then why didn't they bring him to the justice? >> he was interrogated and of valuable information. bye taking shoup bomber and lawyered up him up at our expense, knock that off and it's problematic and that is another difference. >> what's move to the next round. i'm going to come back and ask the candidates a couple of more questions. and then we are going to have time for closing statements. but i would like to ask each of you this time it will be directly individually to you. and i'd like to raise concerns that have been out there on the campaign trail. starting with you, mr. brown, if you could answer a couple of questions. there are those who argue that you've been campaigning as a moderate republican, but in fact you are quite conservative on

some issues. i would like dress to a couple questions. robie wade said this level of the land in the respected but you have been endorsed by the right-to-life groups who are campaigning for you. what is your preference be to see roe v. wade overturned? is that your preference? >> nope. i think people -- and i know you're not from this area that i have a long history of surface selecting a state representative, state senator, 30 years in the military. i live and a houseful of women i'm very proud of, and to try to have people twist my record -- >> do you support roe v wade? >> that's never been an issue, it's always been the case. >> you do support it? okay, let me ask a second question. it is the issue on climate change. you were recently quote in the newspapers as if someone asked you whether or not climate change was a big fraud and to easily set let's wait and see as if we don't have enough information. do you believe that global warming is caused by man-made

activities or are you skeptical? >> first of all that is not an accurate quote and secondly the climate is changing all the time. martha and i agree it is a question of what we do with regard. do we do a cap-and-trade -- >> the question was do you think the global warming is a big fraud and you responded centers to be but i think the globe is always heating and cooling. he went on to say you need more accurate information. >> once again that's not accurate. >> it's part of the newspaper. >> what paper are you talking about? i'm going to tell you my position right now. the climate is always changing. it always has and there is a question of whether it is man-made or natural and it's a combination of both right now how do we address it? that's the key. you are asking how we address it and we need to make sure we do a bunch of things. conservation, wind, solar, hydroelectric -- when is the last time we felt a nuclear power plant to step back from dependence on fossil fuel? the difference between martha coakley on these issues and the

in the midst of recession she was in favor of a cap-and-trade scheme that was granted the energy costs skyrocket% to the president. yes, the climate is changing to answer your question. i don't care how it is changing, what to make sure we address the fact we step back from the use of fossil fuel. it's pretty simple. >> ms. coakley, some wonder whether you as a front runner have been sometimes a little complacent -- i wonder in looking back whether you think it was the right decision to insist on three people given the fact when john kerrey campaign he said i would read one on one entel he said malae will do it one on one. what about you? >> i think was a very good decision, and i think that, joe, as you can see tonight added a lot to the debate. he's added a lot to the discretion and the position has always been as i'm familiar with the dates here in massachusetts people who are on the ballot should be able to get up when it is a public sponsored debate and

half the voters judge them as they what, scott or me or anyone else to get signatures to get on the ballot. we've had plenty of opportunities to can see tonight to go one on one. there's issues in which voters get to compare but in a public forum sponsored on television everyone has access to it makes a lot of sense. a)rbrbbrb@ @

campaign. you are in a situation where it comes to the final days and you are far back. do you have preference between these candidates as to which one you would like to see when if you do not? >> the most important thing here, i will [laughter] >> so in all honesty i think the most important thing here, and i will answer your question, i think the most important thing that we do here as a third-party candidate is to get the message that. none of these two candidates as been willing to talk about spending and if they can't talk about spending that we can't have any intelligent discussions around the economy and essentially i will-- my answer would be whoever can actually start talking about cutting of spending, neither one of them have been willing to do so but who what i support would be the person who whenever they decide to stars being realistic about

what is going on with the economy and talk about cutting spending. >> in terms of answering the question to you have one that is closer to your model? >> i honestly think that's got at least talks about cutting taxes, which is part of the way there. my issue with scott is essentially last year he had the opportunity when we had the referendum to cut the income tax. he has been calling for across-the-board tax cut. we had the opportunity last year. he publicly came out against it and it was voted down. that is $3,700 that could it cannot to everybody and he voted it down. a year later he is calling for the exact same thing that he didn't want to have a year ago and the state economic conditions. how do voters trust him? i don't know. >> thank you. i would like to turn to one final question to each of you and then he will have a chance for a closing statement. this is about, more personal in nature and that is in talking to

people in the press, talking to voters there is a common refrain and that is the people's sense they knew senator ted kennedy very well as a human being. he was senator for a long time and had a chance to make a lot of personal connections and they have a lot of respect for his view and they down since they know you very well, and they have had a hard time-- can you tell us getting beyond what you have said in your advertising and your stump speeches can you give us a personal insight into what you would like the voters to think who you are as a person starting with ms. coakley? >> i think that is a great question david and part of it is we are constrained by these. my husband tom is here with me tonight, my sister mary, my sister in coke comma britain mcevan. come from a big family. my mother was the youngest of ten and my dad on his own insurance agency in didn't have much use for politics but i think he would be proud of the work i've done. i am driven by the work that

they do, passion for the-- victims, the kids come keeping them say. i did take my work seriously but as those who know when we'll i don't take myself seriously. i can be funny believe that are not even though most people don't think that. they are laughing, because they know but i enjoy my life felt side. i love to cook, i love to downhill ski. i have to craig less. i feel blessed that i get to work every day on behalf of the public can have a great personal life with a tremendous husband who loves me and i think i'm very lucky. >> mr. kennedy. >> i think it is best to stay i am very close to my family. my father is the minister. i think the best thing people should understand is when i called my father up and told them up i was fun to do hear the words out of his mouth where oh no, i am very proud of you. [laughter]

and i told them why i was doing it and i think people need to understand the reason why i am doing it, i don't get anything out of it. this would be a pay cut for me. the prices and less than fair and the amount they get on stage is usually less than there. the reality is the message has to get out there and i would risk every single thing that i do on a day-to-day basis to make sure somebody is actually supporting the people of the state of massachusetts because one might look at the taxes i pay, when i look to the taxes i pay at the end of the day but i see they have to be cut because i support a family and everybody else here does to back. >> thank you very much. i want to thank you both for participating and thank you for having this as well and being here, david. eig kopel people get to know me more than the media has portrayed me and they have done a pretty good job but there's a lot more, and it is kind of hard to talk about but this race has

made me reflect, i didn't come from a lot of money and my parents were divorced a few times. my mom was on welfare for a pig of time and i have worked my way up. i have two beautiful daughters and a loving wife of 23 years and i had been serving the state that i loved. i was raised here and i will probably die here and the thing i have loved about this race is the fact that i have been able to travel all the room the state in meet some great people and seeing great businesses and know what their needs and hurts are and it is made me appreciate in love this state in this country more and i'm hopeful that people appreciate that fact and will appreciate my service not only as a municipal and legislative leader but also my military service and i'm hoping they give me a chance to go to capitol hill and try to fix what is wrong there. >> thank you. we will now turn to a closing statement. the order has been determined by a lottery. the first will be ms. coakley. >> i am asking for voters on

january 19th to vote for me for u.s. senate because we need to send somebody to washington who will address these difficult problems and get results. i've done that as your attorney general, as the district attorney in middlesex county. i know the economy needs regulations and i know that we need to get people back to work and bring jobs here. i know how to do that and i intend to do that and i appreciate the kinds of ideas that joe kennedy has brought to this because my friend jerry brown, attorney general of california said we have all been spending too much money we don't have on step we don't need and that is true of us individually and as the government. that azimi however there aren't very important things and things we have to spend our money on to keep our kids they have come to keep our family say. i brought back $1 billion to consumers. that is my first priority making sure we use our money smartly and keep our people say. >> david, thank you for you to coming out in thank you for

being such goods for ten thank you to our viewers for participating. i am so honored to be on the stage with more than joe and to even be considered to be the next united states senator. there's nothing more of like to do than represent you in washington as i have done here in west massachusetts. as the tenet kernel and 30 year member of the army national guard i understand the differences. i support the president and his average to keep us safe and i think i could bring that expertise to washington and help. with regard to taxes i have been fighting the battle on beacon hill. i have look to hold the line on taxes that governor patrick and the political machine are pushing on us. it is happening in washington. washington is starting to act like massachusetts in that regard, texting bush pour sieving. 44 senator i can go down there and elise bring conversation back. it is broken like it is here in massachusetts broken and broken in washington.

as the 60th center debate will be cut off and that is not what our founding fathers wanted and i am hopeful i get the opportunity on january 19th and i appreciate everybody being here in depreciably bealeton david. >> mr. kennedy. >> david, thank you for moderating this evening in thanks everybody for coming up. this election is really about the economy in the future. this is about big government candidates and what you really need to ask yourself this scott will spend money on war, martha will spend money on health care but the reality is who do you want to spend your money? do you want the government to spend your money or do you want to make those decisions for yourself? i am the only candidate who will go out there and i will cut spending. i will repeal obamacare. i will file legislation to amend the wars and i will bring that money back to the people of massachusetts and the rest of the country. i will honor the federal reserve. i am the only candidate who is willing to cut the spending.

you have to ask yourself who do you want spending your money? to you wanted to be the government or do you want to make this decisions yourself? >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen this concludes tonight's debate. the final debate before the election next tuesday. as i would like to thank the edward and kennedy institute of the united states senate for hosting, for sponsoring this debate and i would like to think of the university of massachusetts for hosting this event. i would like to thank or media partners weaponed covering this, eight television stations, three radio stations, the biggest gathering in memory and for a reason, because this election is so close. i would like to urge all of you if you have a moment, given what they have put into it, to go vote. in courage everybody here is the bald in this and i would like to encourage you to vote. if you would i would like to ask if you would join me in thanking

the candidates who have come here tonight and who are so devoted to public service. thank you one and all. [applause] >> jonathan martin "the politico" is a massachusetts covering the senate race there. you write that the race could reshape the balance of power in washington. how would it do that? >> the gop would have four years each sending the democrats' filibuster proof 60 seat majority in the senate. democrats in the senate could not pose legislation in the fashion they would be able to in the past few months, since minnesota senator al franken gave them that 60 of seat so it would basically be something of a roadblock, but for the

democratic majority could assign not just health care which would be the most obvious immediate issue but a number of issues that democrats are pursuing. >> what other agenda items are you talking about? >> well, for example financial regulation of wall street. if they can get to an energy bill, if they can get to an immigration bill. those are three items that you know without having 60 seats could make it harder for democrats to pursue their agenda. >> what about the midterm elections? how would this race the fact that? >> well, there's the substantive impact of the 41st vote like edges mention and there is this symbolic impact, the larger political impact and that is what it would do to the psychology of the party. if they can't keep ted kennedy's seaton if they lose to a little nonstate said avera peer what does that mean for democrats to come from more competitive

districts from more politically competitive states. the scary things is a lot of votes in the party the peril that they are quinn to face this fall. >> we have seen reports that this is the biggest single american election outside presidential politics in decades. how important is this race? >> i think it is very important for two reasons. the first because of what it means for the democrat majority and secondly because what it will say about the kind of your we are going to have. all too often we read too much into special elections and what they mean and sort of take too much of a pace but because of the electorate and how they are behaving they are going to have to be very-- i think it something for democrats, apparently if they can't win here where can they win? >> jonathan martin of "politico," thank you.

the polls close inas eastern. we will have the results, candidates beaches and your calls on the c-span networks.

>> now a discussion of public expressions of religion in the u.s. posted by the brookings institution. panelist discuss religion and politics in the workplace. religiousherings on government property and the use of chaplains in legislative bodies and the military. this is two hours. >> so i want to introduce our the very distinguished panel. i will introduce the other members later on. i want to start by introducing my friend and colleague and a person for whom i have boundless respect and admiration, melissa rogers. i am very proud to say melissa is in on resident senior fellow with the government studies, department t-rec brookings. she also served as director of wake forest university divinity school center for religion and public affairs. melissa teaches classes on

christianity and public policy and on church-state relations in the united states. in 2008 bailey university press published a casebook she co-authored religious freedom and the supreme court. she previously served as executive director of the pew forum on religion and public life and his general counsel of the baptist joint committee on public affairs. president obama appointed melissa to his counsel on faith-based neighborhood partnerships in 2009. melissa has won many many awards but not nearly as many as she deserves and they present you with melissa rogers. [applause] >> good morning and thanks to my friend e.j. for that kind introduction. as he can tell e.j. has such a way with words, and he always is able to put his finger right at the heart of an issue and i thank him for that very eloquent

introduction. i also want to thank just as we get started daro west, emily lithicum christine sago to helping to assist in this event and encourage the work. additionally at wanted thank wake forest university divinity school and all the people named on the final inside page of this booklet that you have today particularly bill leonard, adam wads, susan tag enjoy robbins. without their support this project would not have come together. let me begin by highlighting, taking you to the first inside page of this document where he will see the list of members of the drafting committee for this document. in this project in particular, the tractors are as important as the draft. i want to recognize all of these distinguished leaders for their efforts, painstaking at times, and their commitment to religious freedom.

i am going to call the names of the drafters who were able to join us today and if you wouldn't mind just raising your hand when i call your name. nathan dimon of the orthodox jewish congregations of america, richard fulton of the american jewish committee, charles haynes of the freedom forum first amendment center, holly coleman inprint walker of the baptist joint committee, the institute for religion and civic values, called the maid of the american center for law and justice, rabbi david silverstein of the religious action center for reform judaism, dr. raj on religion and education, marc stern of the american jewish congress, mitchell tyner formerly of the general conference of seventh day adventists and i hope i have not missed any drafters here in the audience with us today. isabella, my goodness, thank you. isabel, you changed your name recently but i am so glad you raised your hand here.

isabella richmond, the first freedom center a very valued drafter and came from richmond to join us this morning. thank you so much isabella for your participation in this project. again what makes this statement particularly valuable is that it has been trebly attracted not only by a group that is quite the first in religious terms but the also the verse liukin in terms of representatives. indeed some on the drafting committee are actually on opposite sides of church-state litigation with some regularity. the drafting committee for the stake includes for example a former staff member of the aclu and current staff member of the american central one justice colby lay pandith experts like this can agree on what the law is a commands our attention. as the document makes clear saying that these experts agree in many cases about what the law is is not to say these tractors always agree about what the law should be.

indeed some of the members of the drafting committee are challenging and trying to push the law in different directions, the law, some of the law described in this booklet. but while this the first group often disagrees about how the law should address the galicia's the drafters agree in many cases on what the law is today and more fundamentally that raptor agreed their religious liberty or freedom of conscience is a fundamental inalienable right of all people, religious and nonreligious and that there is the need to correct misunderstandings about this right. and indeed we have drafted this statement because i don't have to tell you there's tremendous confusion about this area of the law. we here broad inaccurate statements all the time on the one hand, the statement that somehow religion has been kicked out of the public square and on the other hand the statement that there are no limits when government deals with religion

or just one or two. so this statement is an effort to try to blow away those mischaracterizations to state with the current law is, where we can to get there and to educate people about that law. let me just say you may be wondering how did this motley crew come together to draft the statement so let me just give you a bit of background on the genesis of this project if you will. it began several years ago when the freedom forum first amendment, which is charles haynes associated with thief first free them, the first amendment center, the freedom forum he with the mccormick tribune museum house today conference and brought many of us together to talk about the future of religious liberty and at that conference we discuss some ways in which some previous joint statements of current law have helped us educate americans

about church-state law. these statements some of you may remember or about religious expression in public schools, and charles played an instrumental role in development in the statements as did marc stern who will speak in just a moment. so we talked about the statements, their usefulness and decided it would be a good idea to draft another mark-- joint statement this one addressing some issues of religious expression in the wider public square including religion and politics, religious gatherings on public property, chaplains, a presence in the military and religion in the workplace. i offered to convene and facilitate the project under the auspices of the center for religion and public affairs at wake forest university divinity school and while i think it is safe to say there were times when all of us doubted our sanity for agreeing to participate in this project we can say today it had a happy ending.

let me also just note quickly that we have been very fortunate to have a number of statements and endorsements for this project by distinguished and diverse group of leaders. we ask a handful of leaders to endorse the statement and i am pleased that the president of the institutional religious freedom alliance who was one of those and tortures could be with us today too. let me just turn quickly to the document itself. we have divided the questions among ourselves so we can give you just the briefest of overviews of some of the subjects the statesman addresses. this statement by the way does not address every issue. it does not address all specific patterns. instead a surgeon general principle of law and constitutional law. so let me say the first 11 questions deal with generally with religion's role in public like and legitimate politics. this statement makes clear the first amendment protects the rights of religious groups to

participate in political activities. religious individuals and groups like nonreligious groups have a right to participate in the debate of all issues that are important to political life. now as the statement notes it organizations including religious ones wished to maintain status as by the one c3 organizations they have to abide by certain restrictions and you can see in the document questions 93 levin briefly discussed those rules. i am not going to take the time to discuss them right now but we can later if you wish. carrying forward with this, government officials inform their policy decisions so long as advancing religion is not the predominant purpose or primary effect of government auction but the mere fact and law coincides with religious tense does not mean that it violates their religious clauses of the constitution. for example just because some

religions teach that that this wrong does a mean the government cannot in natural laws agents larsen coos of the federal government may require a person to swear or affirm that he or she will support the constitution in order to serve as a government official but it may not require a person to promise allegiance to or against a god, any particular faith or purely religious precepts in order to serve the government and those who make an affirmation or take an oath promising to fulfill certain duties towards government may choose to do so while placing on the hand that is sacred to him or her whether the text is the bible or something else but this is not in any way required by the constitution. we also note in a statement that elected officials have to protect and defend the constitution including the establishment clause. wet the same time elected officials are given substantial leeway to refer to the religious ideas and communities and talk about their personal beliefs including their personal

religious beliefs and their official capacities. the constitutional lines in this area are always clear but we try to provide a few examples of where this might run of all of the establishment clause in the question and answer seven. let me conclude with an overarching note but before i do want to note that berry has joined us from the ethics and religious liberty can committee and he is here and we are so happy he is here in richard land of the southern baptist convention was it drafter and we are grateful for his participation in the project. so let me conclude with one overarching notes, that dovetails from comments cj nate. i said one of our purposes for drafting this document was to attempt to educate people about current law. we also have another purpose and that is we know we can and should have a better conversation about religion's role in public life and we hope this statement will help us do

so. the statesman should help settle the debate about whether current law provides any protection for the right of religious expression and practice in public life. it clearly does and should focus our attention on the merits of specific was in court decisions in this area and as we say in this document we hope as we americans debate these very important areas of church-state law and religion's role in public life we will describe the ava accurately. deese want-- doing this job of describing the law accurately certainly will not and our debate over religious liberty but it should help to make them much more productive. with that let me thank you again for being here and let me turn over the mic to e.j. for the introduction of other valient colleagues. [applause] >> thank you melissa and we are

very honored with the colleagues on this stage today as well as so many of the folks in the audience. charles haynes, many of you are familiar with his work. the senior scholar at the freedom forum first amendment center and he directs the religious liberty initiatives at the museum in washington d.c.. he is best known for its work on first amendment conflicts in public schools over the past two decades. he has been a principle organizer in drafter of consensus guidelines, religious liberty in american schools. personally i think that is one of the most important documents anyone has produced in a long time on the subject because it cleared a lot of ground to secure actual religious liberty in the schools and to put aside some useless arguments it was endorsed by a broad range of religious civil liberties and educational. he is the offering co-author of six books including a documentary history of first

amendment rights in america, a series of other books. his column inside the first amendment appears in more than 250 newspapers nationwide and is somebody who writes a column, that is a lot of newspapers. you will semesters degree from harvard divinity school and a doctorate from emory university. marc stern, welcome to mark. >> guest: executive director and general counsel of the american jewish congress and director of its commission on law, social justice and relations. he is one of the most respected lawyers on church-state and religious issues. buse consult the by jewish and non-jewish organizations interested in maintaining the separation of church and state and he is widely interviewed in print and broadcast media. he has been named one of the 450 most influential leaders of the american jewish community and when i saw the fourth 50 at thought it was a basketball

group but it is a very-- [inaudible] >> prior to joining the american jewish congress he was law clerk to the u.s. court of appeals for the fourth circuit. he was an undergraduate at yeshiva where he graduated summa cum laude. he received his education at the camp-- where he was managing editor of the colombia journal of law and social problems. colby maid director and senior counsel of the washington office of the american center for law and justice. he has been with the acl jcids 1994. >> specializes in federal and regulatory proceedings, communications and technology, nonprofit tax issues in first amendment lauper killey is a graduate of george mason university school of law and has represented parties and various amicus curiae briefs and in other ways in so many landmarks

supreme court cases that i have five and a half pages of them here but you will forgive me if i don't read them all. but they stand as a history of first amendment litigation in our country over the last many years. he has testified before congress on a variety of matters including the religious liberty and protection act, the domaine may, the houses of worship political speech in protection act. he is an adjunct professor of law at regioned university in virginia beach. he is on the board of directors of many civic and charitable organizations including enough is enough, a pro-family organization working to make the internet safer for children. that is a very interesting topic we should send-- discuss some day. ifrs call on charles haynes for his response.

>> thank you very much e.j. for that various introduction and i am delighted to be here to cross the finish line with the rest of my drafters and i want to begin by expressing deep gratitude to melissa rogers. she mentioned that this started in our 2005 actually conference on the future of religious freedom. the future is now. it took us that long to get here today but not because melissa did not do her job but the rest of us i think captor from getting it finished. she not only did it start there but it was her idea and then she volunteered to do it. i think she might do that over again differently today, but her leadership has been extraordinary and her negotiating skills and thanks tigger the american people now have i think it is fair to say the first-ever consensus statement on constitutional role of religious expression in american public life under current law and those of you who

are not with the press and certainly now applaud melissa for her leadership. [applause] this document we released today builds on the civility and the trust that have characterized similar, and grand negotiations over the past two decades. now the people at the table had carried but the process i would say is consistently reflected in share dedication to first amendment principles. even when we disagree on how to apply those principles. and, and abiding commitment to treat one another with fairness and respect. now, prior, grand agreements, nine and all by now, have focused on religion in public schools as he did mention the beginning with guidelines for teaching about religion in 1988. i think i have the last surviving copy of though marks says he has won so there may be

to last copies. do you have one? there three copies left in the world. yeah, we actually printed them. but that goes way back. beginning with that statement on religion in schools that mark led the way on the 1995 to guidelines on the bible in schools in 2000. that was an interesting negotiation in more recent agreement on a process for addressing sexual orientation in public schools and other difficult negotiations. but because of the comprehensive nature of many of these earlier agreements, we didn't find it necessary to include in this statement more than a brief summary of the common ground already reached on the place of religion in public schools and we simply then refer people to those more comprehensive statement. otherwise this would have been a book. in answer to questions 33 and

34, we are of bierer from the public school officials may not promote or endorse religious expression, but we underscore that students are free to express their faith so long as they are not disruptive, they don't infringe on the rights of others and they comply with the same time, place and manner applicable to other nonsmall related expression and we reaffirm public schools may teach about religion and we finally get over the myth that religion can't be discussed in public schools. they can teach about religion as opposed to engaging in religious doctrine nation where appropriate is an important part of a complete education. the consensus on what the law requires on key issues involving religious expression in public schools is spelled out more fully in these earlier joint statements, i would say has helped transform how many public-school districts of ply the first amendment.

in 2000, three of these consensus statements were sent by the u.s. department of education to every public school in the united states. and that provided school leaders with a legal, safe harbor for addressing conflicts over religion in schools. now, having worked with hundreds of school districts on these issues for two decades, i can say with confidence that common ground reached on the national level frequently enables local communities to adopt policies and practices that enjoy a prod -- broad public support. na is a powerful-- y, crown is essential for the civic health of our country. based on the track record of these past agreements i am convinced that this new joint

statement covering a wide range of issues can play and will play a significant role in preventing litigation, encouraging civil discourse and promoting public understanding of the religious liberty principles of the first amendment. at a time of rapidly expanding religious diversity, ongoing culture wars over literature, this agreement is a welcome reminder that america still works. seeking common ground is not an attempt to ignore or minimize differences that are deep and abiding, but rather a reaffirmation of what we share as americans across our differences. as father john courtney murray famously reminded us years ago the first amendment principles that sustained the american experiment of religious liberty are not articles of faith.

we have those in our different ways. but they are he said our articles of peace. anfal more than at any time in our history it is imperative that the live and model ts articles of peace in our life together as citizens of one nation with many faiths, with many cultures, with many people's. thank you very much. [applause] >> my colleagues of hum i have worked with for many years have an act for saying the right thing and i have a knack for saying the wrong thing.

[laughter] >> that is why he is invited to be on panels. [laughter] >> a radical tendency in some of my family. i guess that much has come down. like much else in american life, church-state separation and religious liberty are today highly polarized topic sword lease so it appears. presently contending for influence are those who see religion as an indispensable pillar of the state and those who would confine religion to the purely private sphere. debates over hurley charge issues such as sam says marriage and abortion touch on both popular discourse and freedom from step with religion and freedom of religious practice. these debates into take on more intensity and not less. the abortion laws in 35 years old and show no signs of abating. the abortion wars battle over same-sex marriage are today complicated by competition between those who comprise

liberty over equality. the emergence in the last five to ten years of its secular movements. it is good for lawyers abetted a new dimension to american debate over the riches presidents and the public's fear of leading to challenges of practices including manifestations of civil religions that others concerned with the religious liberty of long ignored the commination for which once routinely accept that is now challenged. live in jorde was simpler 30 or 40 years ago or so it appears in hindsight when all the thought about was prayer and bible reading in the public school, aid to parochial schools and unemployment benefits to saturday sabbath. they issues eidman jenin which were divided are important and understandably did this a. i don't think we ought to shy away from debate nor do i think the country cannot survive some on bridgeable gap between those with differing views on the place of religion in public life for the one argument i cannot stand and he repeatedly is if

you raise the argument he will be to visit. and ok of the argument in democracy. what would be damaging would pick up on a phrase others have made into paraphrases the title of the report from the days of the civil rights would be the widespread impression that we are unbridgeable, separate and unequal over religion and the lauper of the joint statement were releasing showed that a minimum to dispel the amiss meant that it exists for the unbridgeable entirely. hesitancy there is broad agreement on important points have not always what the law should them but what it is. if people knew what the law was there would be less likely to-- mischievous demagogues to either dam sick truism or religious fanatiscism spur govea jamilla dfar law is quite different and more moderate than the demagogues on either side for trey. that his plan from our statement. charles sis said this is not the first joint state and of the 80s. there were to import and once on

the alexis act and how it was observed in public schools in 1990 and 1995 there is a joint statement on religion in public schools and teaching bible and religion in schools part of the impact of these statements is not found in their impact in litigation. they don't show up there, rather they show up in the absence of litigation as charles says that. they also helped change the political atmosphere. the joint statement on religion in public schools was credited by some legislators as derailing the push for school prayer by refusing the potent but completely inaccurate statement that god has been driven from the public schools. finally on a personal note the ever to produce john sidman said overtime lead to personal organizational relationships that would not have been interested in frankly the death would not have existed as well but for the drafting process. it is a matter of great regret that the polarization of the last decade, there not been efforts to create joint statements and i think that has led to a centrifugal force-- the

other way. i never took the six. that is it. in the organizations which have drawn up part over time. i have been asked and tasked with the impossible job of explaining to the rules on access to public land for private religious speech, question 17 and 21. since i don'ts understand this body and not sure it will be able to explain it. there are four categories of cases that you have to keep in mind. the first is accessed by government to its own property for the purposes of this planning its own symbols. the important constraint here is the establishment clause constricting cases involving the ten commandments. we now know however the government is under no obligation to allow balance for competing symbols on its own property. if it excludes everybody except itself. the traditional public forum is the second category. this is set aside by tradition,

whenever that might be for public expression such as parkside boots. emir axis isdell buchass no problems. the pub kinset amass on the great lawn or in new york or in the mall here and there is no unconstitutional religion. on the contrary the exclusion of religion only from these places would be a violation of the establishment cause and the free-speech clause however reasonable restrictions limit on the number of people attending were the dressable level of equipment are permissible in countries. the third category is the designated public forum. here this is the land or property of the state-- to public debate but deliberately chooses to open to public debate. if it does so, intentionally, not by accident it has created a designated public forum subject to the same rules applicable to traditional public forms. in particular in a designated

public forum content based was no discussion of politics or religion or viewpoint based restrictions, catholics r. loud, protestants dar dar impermissible but again time place or manner restrictions are okay. the nonpublic forum say jail is public property kept close to the public can hear the government is free to and exclude everybody from speaking however the chooses to allow some people and it cannot engage in a viewpoint discrimination. it will allow people who favor government policies to speak in this non-government form but not others. here comes the hard case and don't worry at the don't understand it because i think it is completely unintelligible. the hard cases what is sometimes called the limit to designated public forum. that is the government sets up an otherwise non-public forum for a limited speech purpose say a form for discussion of community interest, community issues. mayeth then say it will exclude

worship services because these did not fall within the parameters of the intentional open form. the form is for discussion of community issues and you are praying. that is not within the bounds of the form we have set up. the first thing you have to decide is that content based occlusion. we are excluding a particular kind of content, worships services or is that viewpoint discrimination? we are excluding the viewpoint that god can help us to our problems. i don't know the answer to that question. done expect help. some courts say yes, when you set up a designated form you can limit what sort of speech you will allow and other court said no you can't. some courts so we can dude on the basis of content but not the point. of course they can't agree on the supreme court are in complete disarray as to whether the exclusion of viewpoint orn exclusion of content.

we can possibly understand it either way. we did not even attempt consensus on this issue. it was hard enough to understand it. there is the case presently pending before the supreme court which is supposed to clear five but will undoubtedly muddied the waters more in which a christian legal society was denied access to a law school forum, that is a student club world that allow people to meet in class were goods and use the emile to announce meetings because strangely enough the christian club thought that people who belongs and words officer should be christians. and they said no and come are designated limited form is only open to close open to everybody and there is of the sexual orientation issue was well, and the way the case gets litigated is whether this is a designated public forum in which case these

are content and viewpoint based discriminations or whether it is a designated limited forum in which case these are the rules that markoff the form and therefore you fallout side of the form and you can be excluded. look for greater confusion by the end of the term on this area of the law. i think it is a singular accomplishment of mullahs and her drafting skills that he manages to stay in the document all these rules and deceptively simple and coherent fashion. i cannot resist before kolbay gets up to speak, the real miracle is that it got out it all because unlike the rest of us colby news they have of english grammar and cares about them and knows the rules for siting legal cases and cares about them. most of the rest of us put this out of line as soon as we graduated elementary school and law school and rivers order and we nevertheless overcame his objections to get a statement out. [applause]

>> if you prefer to talk less about the rules of grammar, that is okay. [laughter] >> that is great. i tend to agree that sometimes the rules of grammar can be made be more ascertainable then some of the rules that we have put forward in this joint statement but i do like all the others want to thank melissa particularly first for her leadership on this. it would not have happened otherwise end to be on a panel was charles haynes i think is also a distinct privilege because charles in many ways as we discussed earlier before the panel began regarded as the godfather of all of these events where we need to try and work things out and see what the common grounds are and everytime i participated in have been given the privilege to do so i can tell you bowen beholds there's pretty good common ground that exists between the two but lots of times in the fever of the moment if you will it seems that those engaged in

litigation in these areas were on this constant fever. is difficult to sort of calmed down a little bit and say well, okay, we can agree with those sorts of things. clearly as has been noted when it comes to the intersection of religion in government there is no doubt the signers of this document disagree over what the law should be but in many ways the lot in this area is clear and we want to be able to give you some insights and direction on how it happens. now, just as surely as we are all in the throws to try to figure out what the law should be, we are also actively trying to get the courts to shape the law in ways that we actually wanted to become a soap mark maid elusion to a case that my organization, the american center for law and justice where we recently obtained the unanimous decision from the supreme court last february which noted that governments may in fact except permanent

monuments from parties including the ten commandments monuments and they may in fact displayed this monuments with that of the wise opening up shall we say this public forum which obligates the government to allow divergence are contre points of view to be done. not surprisingly as they said many in the academy if you will oppose this on that and get we very much are about trying to carve the law and push it in the direction we think is appropriate in order to fulfill the aspirations of the founders and to recognize the importance of religious liberty. so when we come to get their, the law currently answers these basic questions regarding, what really brought us together is their shared conviction that religious liberty and freedom of conscience are in fact fundamental. their inalienable rights for all people and it is our hope their efforts to find consensus will steer others to engage in

another similar effort to find common ground. westroads haynesists said many times over the years. in keeping with the format of this morning's panel i would like to briefly poke its some of the specific issues and when you get down to the nitty-gritty of the various issues that we seem to litigate or have controversy that this when all hemming breaks loose you might say. in my call my grandmother did not like the of the word sociois made sure she said when all heaven breaks loose. so let me briefly discuss a few of these. want to touch base on the national motto, prayer at certain public events including. [inaudible] girls of elected officials and the like prayers at the beginning of the legislative sessions and then why government does not violate the establishment clause when it hires military and prison chaplains who saw this function and of course is to perform religious services and meet their religious needs of those in the government's charge.

these are questions generally 23 through 25 in the joint statements that you have. let me state categorically that national motto in god we trust does not establish a state religion or impermissibly endorse religion over non-religion. this is so because as the courts have noted for many decades, the motto, which originated during the war of 1812 has become so deeply interwoven into the fabric of our sicle-- civil policy that its primary effect is one of ceremonial patriotism and there's no real resemblance to government sponsorship of very religious exercise. even in the face of this general consensus however the freedom from religion foundation recently challenged the engraving ubben-pomata with the new capitol visitor center here in washington so stay tuned. we will see what happens as that case may develop and sell clopper coach rigging to the customary practice of prayers in

inaugural events here to courts have a general consensus that the practice can be traced back to the founding of the country and that this distinguished history and ubiquity allows appears to be treated as ceremonial exercises and not government sponsorship of religious exercise. in addition in this context because inaugural events involve the individual choices of the elected officials as to what is going to be in it or not in the particular ceremony or a offence, the oath of office notwithstanding, the courts it usually given deference in those decisions and in the last reason we can say with some confidence that inaugural prayers are permissible is that the court simply have not been convinced that the inaugural prayers argues to affiliate the government with religion or to otherwise proselytize. regarding what is slippers it is also clear their permissible in

legislative bodies they employed chaplains to provide prayers during sessions and this is so for the reasons stated in march bee shavers back in 1983 which is in light of the unambiguous and the unbroken history of more than 200 years there could be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society. to invoke divine guidance of a public body entrusted with making the law is not easy circumstance and and the establishment of religion are a step towards establishing it. it is simply intolerable acknowledgement of believes widely held among people of this country. now this acknowledgement however is not open-ended, and there continues to be litigation in the area in the lower courts particularly over when official prayers particularly at the local county and city levels may become impermissible government attempt to proselytize or the fans what religion or disparage

any other religion or belief. therein lies the rub, so you have to be careful. while in the general it may be permissible, in a particular all have that may break loose in the words of my grandmother. lastly in the context of military and prison chaplains, while there's controversy over when and what if any limitations may be properly placed upon religious exercise and prayers of those officials and what they may offer, there's a general consensus that government made and indeed perhaps should hire such chaplains and make them available as an accommodation to the individuals in charge of the government. going as far back as the supreme court decision in 1963 of babington v. schempp a decision was struck the mandatory bible readings in public schools, the courts acknowledge when the government to require someone to be somewhere, in this case the context of farmed forces and

prisoners, would have to be in specific places for specific times and they are otherwise denied the opportunity to practice their faith at the place and time of their choosing then in order to avoid infringing their free exercise guarantees, the government should provide substitutes where it requires such persons to be. each of these categories, d'mato, pirate public events, inaugurals, reds-- was is that the prayers prison chaplains, they have course of nuances. we tried to address those nuances to the extent appropriate in the joint statement. and we think that will be helpful, as you may actually get the fractioned points of these things playing out in the day-to-day life. that is why i commend the statement to you. i look forward to today's discussion on this and again i want to thank the panel and the opportunity to be able to participate in the drafting of

this document. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much. i must say by the way as a catholic of a certain age i particularly appreciate the question and answer format. this is kind of the catechism of law and religious liberty, and i very much appreciated point mark made that american law is more moderate fundamentally then demagogues would have it. religion has not been driven from the public square and we are not moving down the road towards eight yakkers in the think the first amendment itself and by its balance, since it says congress shall make no establishing religion or interfere with its free exercise and i always instructed by my melissa-- lawyer melissa, how we can live by both of them. i want melissa to join me in moderating this and we are going to bring in the audience fairly quickly, but for people who sort

of or not all that familiar with this area that you all are very familiar with, they might come to this and say okay, all you smart lawyers have actually manage to agree on what the law says. what good is that actually? what difference does the document of this sort may? willett bordoff unnecessary litigation? might it comfort both the more secular and more religious americans and either of them might imagine. could you talk about why this matters? i suggest what i think it matters but i would be very curious, who would like to take that first? maybe melissa since you are responsible for everything except the grammar. >> no, no and i want to emphasize again before getting to that question that this document was drafted jointly by all these people. we did it together. it was a joint graph.

>> stop blaming the rest of us. [laughter] >> we are all in this together. and i want to say that all these topics come any one of the drafters could stand up and talked and probably all day about it so i want to bring the folks that are with us at the front of the room and part of the drafting committee into the conversation quickly. ..

concrete examples to the question just so you know this is not a waste of time and this actually gets out there and is used. it remains to be seen how this document will be used. but if you look at school district policies around the country would you have on religion in schools and school districts that work on good policies and there are quite a few now you will see quoted verbatim a lot of the earlier consensus statements including

the one marked draft of religion in schools, including the one both thomas and i negotiated earlier in the history of this. you will see actually they use these agreed words and language because this is their safe harbor because groups on one side and the other signing on to these agreements have now a basis for developing policies and the courage to do it. that plays out in preventing fights in the school districts and you hear about the fights and lawsuits but you don't hear about the ones that didn't happen and i can tell you a lot more what happened if had been for this consensus so it's a preventive kind of measure. the bible guide we put out in the 2000, and again mark was instrumental in that as well and i can tell you state boards of education have used the consensus guidelines to filter requests for bible course is that come in are the constitutional, are they not, they look at the guidelines with

the national association of evangelicals, people for the american way, groups that often with each other over this bible issue or sign on to the guidelines so that state board, the local board has some way of telling is this a legit, is it not under the current law and so that bible guide has been very significant and the more recent one, just a small number of organizations worked on but still important how to deal with sexual orientation in public schools. it's more of the process guide it's not a prescriptive legal guide but it's how do you get down to a conversation about this and maybe find some common ground. and i can tell you there's a number of school districts around the country that have used the process and that guide to find some common ground on that very difficult and volatile issue in their public schools. so those are some concrete ways in which this kind of agreement can actually change life in local communities in ways that bring people together rather

than sending them into court or into bitterly divided arguments. >> let me try another public sybil's from abroad community. there is a rumor around that there's a petition that the fcc to delicense to its generated more letters to the fcc than anything else, the latest efforts to raise cable rates may change that. this statement misspells that. the recent fight over a health care has led the bishops on two things, a controversial, as the abortion issue of course and the other is a lady of there being some communal responsibility to care for the poor. one of those was said to be a violation of church and state, the other gets passed over and under silence and you get a false debate whether the church has any right to be heard on a

public issue. this generates controversy that has no basis in the law, leaves aside public policy and give you routinely see claims the irs sought to be investigating this or fcc shouldn't be doing that but it's all nonsense and that is a waste of public energy. it creates this agreement and sometimes bordering on hatred. it is on necessary. it doesn't serve a function. there's a legitimate debate about the role of abortion and the health care program, a legitimate debate about whether the government has any responsibility for health care. it is a legitimate debate how much broadcast the retial spectrum. all of those things are legitimate to be a. what is not legitimate of the issues i've said are the ones being debated and we hope this will clear the air. we can have real debates. that's important enough to do.

>> i would add wind we think about the joint statement on religious expression in public schools, i can't tell you how many times we do demand letters to various schools and school districts and usually that is the first place we direct them to saying perhaps you should take a look at the joint statement and educate your general counsel as to what all as in this area and then we can avoid this whole dispute and not get involved in the weeds and issues that have long since been resolved. so they do have a very practical day-to-day impact and usefulness and that's obviously what you hope. it's not to say that when mark is involved in a piece of litigation soon over some issue that is discussed in the trade statement i'm going to be able to cite this as saying you said in a joint statement such and such and that is not with this otherwise ase -- sprick there's a wonderful story i heard in law school, a federal to become a

fellow who wrote on securities law and he gets up to the securities case representing the plaintiff for corporation. one of the judges leans down and says this book loss on securities, the opposite conclusion is reached and he looks up and says that is because you are looking at the first edition. wait until the second addition comes out. before return to the other signers who may want to intervene and than any other question i want to ask one other question. i was struck by questions eight through 11 does the first amendment place restrictions on the political activities of religious organizations the answer is a flat no. and that's important. we get into the irs restrictions on political activities of tax-exempt organizations. i soon expect to see a church

called church 501 ze three. [laughter] can you talk about that distinction because i think the, to the reader the first know my answer all the questions of fact it doesn't but how much does the issue have to do with the first amendment and simply how much does it have to do with tax law? >> i will do that. >> to begin to another complicated supreme court set of doctrines. the answer the churches are unrestrained and political activity rests on at least two supreme court cases where the court said that explicitly and it has been said by both conservatives and the justice berger and liberals justice brennan so there's no question about. the question is when they become too successfully persuaded the legislature that there is some restrictions placed the church is free to say whatever they want.

there are two competing doctrines. one is up on conditional, and constitutional conventions. i can't get a government benefit and then say you can only get it if you give up on another constitutional right. so for instance in 1937 the supreme court said if you give a tax credit or deduction to veterans you can't take away from veterans who happen to be on the left of the political spectrum. because that is an unconstitutional convention to a right. you can't make the excise of one right condition unwavering. that is one little tin supreme court's enunciate. they also enunciated and leather doctrine like what is the second newton's law for every doctor to counter doctrine. the counter doctrine is the government doesn't have to subsidize speech it doesn't like. most famous case of course is rusty saladdin supreme court said you don't have the government entitled to fund contraception and abortion and it's not an unconstitutional

convention to ask planned parenthood to see you can't perform abortions with our money and that is the same doctrine this is we are not going to subsidize libraries that allow access to job pornography is the same doctor that would allow a municipality which gave out art grants to turn down a racist plea. these doctrines cannot be coherently expressed together and that is why your question is a very good one. on the one hand the government doesn't have to subsidize which is how the court takes it all the it is debatable as well the government doesn't have to subsidize the tax exemption or tax deduction speech that is directly political partisan, political activity. on the other hand that sounds like a classic on constitutional convention. the only thing i can say to you is when the issue was presented directly to the supreme court not in the context of the 501c3 in churches, but the 501 thank also has a general ban on the nonprofits which take the exemption from engaging in the

activity and a substantial amount of lobbying there is an exemption from the substantial lobbying activator veterans groups. not veterans groups challenge that as amongst other things and on constitutional convention and the supreme court said no the government when it gives out its tax exemptions is free to decide which speech will subsidize and which it won't. so we think that although some people are challenging it i think it is pretty clear the court said this falls on the subsidy site. but why it's not an unconstitutional convention remains an open question there's no good answer for. >> i would just add that the statutory side of this is that the government can award a certain benefits to various groups for perhaps fundamental first demint barites like freedom of religion. and it has done so in the context of tax exemption. but it created this dual track under which in the context of lobbying activity described

perhaps broadly as kind of political issue advocacy but not an actual the endorsement of a candidate you can do that and even churches can do, all 501c3, you're just not supposed to do a lot of it. so where do we draw the line? we did this confusion and then the second site is there is an absolute black letter and against actual endorsement vote for or against so and so. but having established those two goals on either end of the playing field you get down to is something a suggestion of an endorsement therefore it is an endorsement and violates the 501c3 restriction and the irs and lifted melissa who has considerable expertise in this area as well, i kidded with her they have this sort of policy that says you know, without actually endorsing or using any express advocacy on behalf of the candidate you can still under coated words which we will

then into it to mean an actual endorsement. so for example if you say support life at all levels or don't forget a woman's right to choose the government might in to it that what you're doing then is endorsing a candidate who is pro-life or pro-choice and now you violated the prescription so it becomes a very opaque mazar you got to work through against the two goals you can endorse and advocate but you can't do a lot of it. >> just for a second to somebody at the microphone? i want somebody to come to the front so we can transition to the audience. >> can i say one other thing? >> real quick. i will surprise you to know there are people in the drafting committee that have problems with some of the irs rules and those who feel others who feel that the rules or reasonably well stated and so we again are

stating what the irs says about its rules and not a silly agreement about whether that is the best way for it to articulate its rules and also i guess just to give the quick answer would be that these restrictions that go with, the present in the code flow from the request and the attempt to maintain and from the first amendment and those are often confused people think the first amendment sets from these rules about lobbying political activities instead is the attempt to seek and maintain tax exempt status that triggers these obligations and substantial not lobbying and no electioneering -- >> i just want to make one comment. the nasty secret is these rules are largely self enforcing or not soft and forcing.

the irs, the last time i looked a couple years ago i think it took on 100 cases a year of 501c3 violations for political the activity. i can't remember the last lobby and campaign the undertook probably planned parenthood in the thirties. so most of the force itself enforcement. there has been an effort first by americans united and more lately by others to turn 501c3 into a political weapon and ask people catch the other side in violation and then report to the irs, which because both because of secrecy and because of her body for gets after the election is over nobody bothers to notice the irs is probably done nothing about so you need to keep this in proportion as well and it is an impact. >> i was thinking about code words many preachers give sermons about hope and change and i wonder if those would have been coded words in 2008.

[laughter] >> if somebody was listening to the sermon. >> can i recognize joshua deval and we are from the white house office of the face ghaith dee dee to -- is based community have joined us. and we welcome you to join the conversation so glad you are here. >> if i could say thank -- >> he would speak and not be heard. >> thank you to the entire community. one might think current law we speaks for itself but unfortunately into many cases it doesn't so the fact you've been able to dig into these complex issues and find some real common ground that a coherent statement across various ideological lines is tremendous so we will certainly be reading this quickly and i will share it with my colleagues and the government. bin will stick around for the entirety of the conversations o thank you peery i appreciate the great work that's been done. >> thank you so much, joshua and the knack for being here. we appreciate very much. sition to joshua.

i was inspired by colby. >> we want to bring you into the conversation and the draft into the conversation. i wonder if we can get a few questions if you have a question raised your hand and we will encourage the drafters to answer the questions with us. >> if you from the baptist press of there. i'm sorry, journalistic preference item that's permitted me. >> its content based discrimination. >> i'm with associated baptist press. number one from polis and charles can best answer this was the most difficult of these affirmations to get consensus or the most difficult area of law and number 21 of the benefits of public statements is that the clinton administration sent out the guidance to all public schools is there a productive part of your plan to get this information to the local governments or all of the various entities that are affected by this consensus

statement? >> a follow-up can you even agree which it was the most difficult to put together? >> probably not in fact i could go on line and take nominations for what people thought was the most difficult. >> wouldn't use the workplace? >> workplace we did struggle with and i have to point to my colleague, the thing was stalwart in keeping us going on the workplace issues and we did as you can tell a arrive at a statement of those principles and like thank nation for his encouragement and also rich foltin is quick to talk about these issues more in a moment. >> it's fair to say that at one point can i say outside we almost didn't put it in their. we couldn't find shared language on what actually the law says. nathan said you can't produce this without me. i think it was really the pushback you can't produce a document on these issues people say where is the workplace. >> can somebody explain that

because i don't think people are familiar with white workplace religious liberty issues are so comprehensive. sprick it might be a good time to talk to rich because he's going to talk about that in the statement. >> you want me to -- >> yes. >> and i haven't forgotten your other question. i will get to that. >> this was planned for me to come up here at some point, so we have done it sort of spontaneously. spontaneity. but let me, since i have this i want to make an introductory remark which is to say as always i think melissa has been modest in her role in giving this about and i think the day may come when melissa together with is seen as a great codify year of the law. [laughter] that is assuming the law stays as it is long enough for that to come about.

i also want to know that as we found in the earlier similar exercises on religion in public schools of equal access, there's been for more common ground and all of these areas including respect to the role of religion in the workplace than we might have expected. it's important not only to understand the commonality for compliance reasons but also the sake of comity in a pluralistic multi faith nation. but nevertheless coming to the question that was asked of me, i think one of the reasons why religion in the workplace actually proved to be so contentious and difficult but notwithstanding that there is a set complete of set law is there are different values as to how we are supposed to do with religion in the public square and that in the workplace a lot of this came to the floor. i think to of those areas of where there is conflict is there is agreement you don't get to

impose religion others so you don't get to as the government as a way of imposing religious perspective and similarly in the workplace protections in place to avoid having a particular religious expression imposed on you and yet on the other hand, none of us is entitled to walk around in a bubble in which we are never exposed to religious perspectives contrary to our own a religious perspective and i think those are brought values that i think we share and yet as one struggles with how that is realized in terms of the application in the workplace i think that is where a lot of these differences cannot and as we were struggling with what is the right language to capture these contending streams in terms of value and law. so having said that let me go to the part which i was charged with which was to talk briefly about what the group concluded are the commonalities. so, i put this in two broad categories.

one is the discrimination verses accommodation category that is what are the distinctions between not discriminating against people on religion and hit at the same time how we deal with obligations to accommodate the practice and the second of the distinctions that exist between the government work place and nongovernment work place those are the broad themes this statement dealt with. so first, secular nongovernmental employees may not discriminate against any employee or potential employee because of his or her face or lack thereof and employers are responsible and this falls within a broader category responsible to insure and players are not subject to harassment on the workplace based on religious affiliation and beliefs or lack thereof and having said that employees hold supervisory positions have special responsibilities in the workplace because they have some power to hire, fire promote and otherwise control employees and supervise and they must understand the religious or antireligious expression can be coercive even if it isn't intended to be and that is a

broad principle that applies to both government and non-government employers. but, so i would call that sort of the equal treatment from how we deal with these issues. but then you deal with accommodation principle which by definition means in some cases employers are going to be obligated to do things for religiously observant employees that they wouldn't otherwise have to do. so it is the nondiscrimination principal sets the floor on the other hand we have to deal with the elected talk about the existential reality of employers who have religious observances that if they are not a comedy it will in practice mean they're being treated differently than other employees because they are not able to function under the general equal treatment rules that would otherwise be applicable to employees and that is covered by title seven which provides that you have to provide a reasonable accommodation of religious practice or believe unless there is an undue hardship for the

employer to speak come to understood as the undue hardship on a religious workers fellow employees. now with the terms mean is of course the subject of concern, some of us in this room have worked and effort to strengthen the existing law we so it is more protective of religious practice and believe than the current law as it's been interpreted by the supreme court but even the existing law it must be clear it isn't in alladi. even with a favorable supreme court opinions there is an obligation of employers to provide accommodation and there are cases employees win when the employer fails to provide accommodation so it is -- it does provide if not enough protection living of some of us a certain degree of protection that needs to be recognized and the kind of cases where this comes up are the case is having to do typically with somebody who needs an accommodation in terms of not working on certain days because of a holy day

observance typically the sabbath because they are required to be groomed in certain ways where a beard or where certain clothing and in some cases relatively small case but nevertheless out there as well cases in which somebody has a religious objections to certain duties but other duties they could perform the would be within the parameters of the job, so again that is the equal treatment pillar and then as modified by the obligation to accommodate. and then very briefly, turning to the government impact of these principles on the government, the same rules typically apply but of course the government operates as well under a set of statutes and constitutional rules that create another layer of the law to consider. the government has personal speech including religious or antireligious speech was is understood to the part of the workers responsibilities when that respect it is a jolly the government is a sort of in fact parallel to a private employer

in their ability to regulate what goes on within the work place but there are also free speech first amendment implications as well which may to some extent limit thet to ree speech and certainly where there is speech taking place outside of the place of employment where the free-speech protections would apply to an employee that might not otherwise be the case, would not be the case for private we eat. and the final area that i am just going to touch upon which is in terms of these constitutional protections and how they apply to an employee is the expression of religion, religious perspective in the workplace and here we go back to this equal treatment notion free exercise of religion as well as statutory protection so that sometimes the establishment

clause need require the government to restrict antireligious or religious speech so it does not appear that the government is endorsing particular speech for instance example given in the document is a worker at a city told both can't be handing out religious tracts or antireligious tracts for that matter to people as they come through and peter toll. now on the other hand, and speech that takes place between employees you can have a speech that touches on religious topics between employees at least to the point where one employees is to the other please stop talking to me about these matters in which case issues of harassment in the workplace could also come into play. there's also been some discussion about in looking at these issues whether or not the religious freedom restoration act plays out in providing an additional layer of protection to employees in the workplace in the government would place the sites title vii. but there is some controversy as

to whether or not the religious freedom restoration act which was intended to provide statutory application of the free exercise clause after supreme court diminished those protections for some controversy as to whether that applies to the government employees that i think the courts are going to clarify or not clarify for us in the future. thank you. >> richard, thank you so much, and i think that answers the question of why it was a very complicated. [laughter] not complicated in the sense you didn't explain it will but complicated because the issues are hard. i suggest -- >> there was a second question. >> the second question phase one as completion of the document. we've completed phase one. phase two is already underway but certainly will be a substantial effort to disseminate this especially to the states and localities, to the mayors, city council members and all kind of governmental officials who have to deal with these questions daily so we hope this document will be a disservice to them and be an aggressive attempt to get out to those folks.

>> thanks to joshua we we know it got to the white house. >> this lady had an urgent question and holley was suppose to come in also. >> absolutely, yes.>>hank you. when we had the incident with the man who who had the explosives on the airplane "the new york times" had done an article on this university of thinking and london where they were saying that this particular university is an islamic group is a hotbed of what better. i was wondering in the united states if we have any cases where a public university if there is a religious group where there are temps to close a group down because of speech that's going on at the group and then what are the legal issues involved? i mean, let's say they are not espousing terrorist activities or anything like that, but let's say the government is monitoring these people and finding a common connection.

>> going back to the u.s., those of us on the panel, this is not an entirely new question. and he lee versus james wendi sts was at its height in the 60's and 70's, colleges tried to sit down the st yes chapters because somebody in this society might someplace have urged bombing something at the university having to do with the war in vietnam or just the establishment. that is a different establishment we are talking about today. and some small university public university in connecticut band the sds chapter and supreme court said they couldn't do that absent a showing of direct disruption in the university. we have a separate set of rules that deal with incite to violence and the current rule which is under in forced by the courts is unless the insight

that is direct and likely to result immediately and relatively immediately and violence it is protected somebody in the case involved in ohio, somebody gets on tv with a gun and says you know here is where the adl offices error and there are too many jews and they are too powerful and we ought to go get some and the supreme court said that is not direct and immediate enough to constitute an insightful violence. i have nothing against shutting down the adl. i want everybody to understand. [laughter] that is the competition. >> he's just joking. >> they are drafters. [laughter] >> that's right. >> subsequently there are cases involving threats to the president or the same rule was applied. however that is that the supreme court level. if you look in the lower courts, there's been an erosion or return to sanity depending on your point of view, the most notable case in the last two decades involved nuremberg sites

or it was an anti-abortion group that had a list of abortion doctors and their address with a caption wanted dead or alive, and whenever somebody was shot there would be a line drawn through them and the question is what saddam incitement to violence. under brandenburg i thought that was an easy case that it was not because it didn't actually call on somebody to be shot. the ninth circuit's held that it was and ordered the site to be shut down and you can find lots of cases like that with regard to threats to the president. so, you know, that is sort of the answer. the tradition generally is we are extraordinarily tolerant of hate speech, no where else in the world to the have the degree of tolerance. >> the only thing i would add is there's a whole cluster of issues about free speech on campuses today. public and private universities. it is a topic would need to get into but i think one of the questions as you know some of the speech codes are being

adopted on college campuses both public and private, are they indeed in the case of public universities constitutional, do they go too far in restricting speech, think it is fair to say that within the various universities and colleges there is a debate going on about how to limit speech that others might find offensive that people don't want to hear. some colleges you actually have free-speech zones being set up and some of these have been struck down already in the courts. >> those have been challenged. >> [inaudible] -- texas as having more limits on speech? >> it is entirely using credit and most of it comes from the other direction. the genesis of the hate speech codes were in an effort to ensure diversity when minorities were first coming on to campuses, there was coded speech that was taken to exclude those

minorities and universities responded with the speech codes and also some sexual harassment was intended to be covered by this. wherever they've been challenged they've been struck as overly broad. if one wanted to deal with this situation like that in a serious way, then what would be i think best of dealing with a particular situation as it arose rather than general rules which almost inevitably will strike too broadly. if you are not targeting somebody you are writing very broad and are going to encompass a lot of speech so if somebody could show somebody's actually engaged in the lawless activity, the inside and he could deal with that. i don't think the speech codes are productive. >> melissa suggests before return to hollywood we go to one more audience question and then i'm sorry, did somebody want to add something before? >> i was just going to give you a form a case the court had about two years ago.

i can't remember the exact name, it was bong hits for jesus. it was during the time of the vietnam war, a decision known as tinkering and basically stood for the proposition students don't check their first amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate so as marc indicated and explained pretty well, the preference is to have a pretty wide tolerance in this area. however, in bong hits for jesus at least a high school level the idea that you might be perceived as advocating an elective in, now that's something that interferes with the pedagogical purposes of the school and therefore they have every right to go ahead and discipline shall we say for that kind of activity. to the extent he might have a group that is advocating some form of, you know, criminal activity or violence and the like you may find that same kind of trend at least in the high school level may come into play. >> by the way for the

initiatives you want to translate bong hits for jesus? >> i think i will -- >> that is another thing the supreme court couldn't get clear. >> sorry, go ahead. we have a question over here. >> i'm sorry, i didn't see with a microphone. go ahead. >> bob ritter with the legal center. in the co-counsel in the roberts challenging the infusion of religion into the presidential ceremony, i would like to express some concern about this report in the sense that i don't see them on believe community represented not just on the panel but in the rafters themselves. i think we would express great concern that answer to some of thehe rief community over the long believe community. i would also like to ask kobe question in terms of his

interpretation of the decision. i was there and certainly heard your her boss. my understanding is that the case was about someone trying to put their monument into the pioneer park and the court held the first part i would agree with you that the government can choose which monuments it wants but it did not settle the issue with respect to the fraternal order of the monument in pioneer park whether the was permissible. it left that for a leader day in fact chief justice roberts said pick your poison. essentially you have either a free speech problem here or you have an establishment clause problem, so i wish perhaps you could address that issue to get >> welcome the answer is true they have not yet addressed, and whether or not it probably comes before the court because

certainly in that case there was no ringing of the establishment clause issue which you made reference to. my referenced to the unanimous decision is to make clear that governments are allowed to accept private permanent monuments replacement and public display in this particular context was the ten commandments on yet in the stands to this day and patio near park in the city of pleasant grove utah, and i think that is actually the kind of right decision because it goes to limit down at least in the public floor area what is government can do. can government speak on its own as it does when you walk by courthouses and government buildings all over, go to jefferson's memorial in so many places it is time out of mind in this city particularly you have religious expressions and when the government does that, the government has the right to speak. whether or not it then crosses the line and becomes an

establishment for a ride that will be where my mother would say that it will break loose and we will have all sorts of different issues about that. but it is a pretty big plate to try to take on and say government can never be in the position of having a monument on permanent display which includes a religious message and that is the point i'm trying to make. >> the reason the court didn't reach the issue was a litigation decision by. the legitimate establish calls claim, the tenth circuit virtually invited to be litigated in early arana the litigation and for reasons it escapes everybody they chose not to raise it. i wrote the only weakest brief in that case supporting so mum. i felt the boundary between public speech and nonpublic speech in this context was much murkier than the court had and it's not clear that this is the government speaking and it is a hybrid category. i think the case should have been cited in different ways.

as to the larger point about the drafting committee, we did have several groups participate all throughout and some of us come from groups with distinguished separationist history, baptist, my own organization, americans united so it's not as if those points of view were not in my recollection as americans united for separation of church and state participated through large parts of the drafting process. >> well, yes, if you look at the list of the signers you can see that there is jeremy, formerly with the aclu, judah shivers -- >> [inaudible] -- i think you might get a different reasons. >> my point is i think you might get a different result if you accept it now believes groups like the american association. like freedom from religion foundation, like american atheists, like the center for in query. >> if what you're doing is actually seeking bill all, you are accurately stating the law

and the gaps between the kurds were sufficient here to insure that wouldn't happen and if you are talking about what the law we ought to be, you obviously could not make a statement about what the law ought to be without including that growing segment of american life but if you are describing with law is it seems to be a lot less urgent to have every single group representing one in defense is and you're either. >> having said that this is an ongoing project and we want to include everybody in the conversation and so i welcome those voices as well. we try to reach out as broadly as we thought we could in this project but the conversation continues and we value those voices as well. let me call on holley, a great friend and a wonderful lawyer who works for the baptist joint committee for religious liberty, she's general counsel there and has filed america amicus briefs in the cases we've discussed and is going to talk a little bit about the statements q&a on government expressions or

displays that include some kind of religious elements. thank you for being with us. >> the question lead straight to the nice transition you wanted to highlight here. let me join others in thank melissa for the strong leadership but also for being such a good model for civil discourse. all of us appreciate that and it is an honor to have precipitated in this with my colleagues, co-workers and friends. and actually, this is i have to say one thing i think everybody has talked about the value of the project, but i think we just demonstrated the value of this project. i had my notes because i'm going to cover questions 18321 to clarify the difference in these cases addressed in the document. when we do of record of document this disagreement with the cases mean that when we actually discussed them as we have in the q&a become to clarity about the sumum case been decided in the free speech from where you have to decide who is talking and the

different analysis the would be applied in the establishment clause arena where the government cannot promote or an advance religion. so, looking quickly at questions 18321 these questions address religious expression on government property in the context such as grave markers, government on cemeteries in religious references and scripture in monuments on government property as we started talking about a little bit temporary holiday displays and art galleries and as you'll know controversies in these areas are very common and i would say many find the court rulings difficult to understand. i think there are more subject to ridicule and pretty good jokes. [laughter] but they are difficult to explain that is possible. i urge you to look at this at this section. the first question about individual gravestones in a grave markers on the government-owned cemetery, a

great example how the court looks at the overall context. what is the religious message and when you are talking about references to religion on individual grave markers, the context shows that this is a reference to the individual person's face as opposed to the government making a statement about christianity or judea's or whatever symbol you might find and the government has to go to great lengths to make sure all religions are represented so there's a wide variety so that is a good example of religious expression and the context shows that it is more lead to the individual than the government. the next was the question about whether or not the government can erect temporary holiday displays. everybody would know that yes in some circumstances as we see so many articles and controversies about that and in our answer their we talked about how the court looks at the context and tries to avoid any kind of

display where the government is actually endorsing religion as opposed to the kind of displays the court has upheld where there is a number of different messages being promoted that represent a particular season of the calendar. these cases of course are not easy but there are some useful guide lines in these cases. question 20 goes beyond all the context, but a bitter disputes to the permanent monuments and while this is a difficult area for a line drawing, they're has to be lines to be drawn and our best evidence of what the court says, what bill law is, is found in two decisions that were decided on the same day, 2005, the mccreary county versus aclu and the peery case, those are the to tenth amendment cases in which the court decided one display did violate the establishment clause, the

mccreary county display in kentucky but they upheld the monument in texas in of the van orden case and what i can say about the agreement there was back-and-forth on what this area, the laws is here and we do fight about what the law should be and what would be the best guide line for the court to put forward and i would say submitted a briefing and we did not get our analysis approved by the court which would have had the vehicle had different results, but the court in the two cases, the issued two distinct cases 137 pages ten different opinions and yet our drafting committee got this down to a page and a half. [laughter] i think for all of you that haven't gotten around to reading the 137 pages and would like to understand what is the court look at, what is still locked irg to look at the because when you will see is context is important you have to look at

the government purpose and overall effect and while the law may not be satisfying it is a little bit more clear than is often exaggerated in the debates. thank you. >> thank you. i just have to say that i was there when the court handed down those decisions on the same day justice rehnquist was sitting and he read all the names of all the opinions and as holley said there were multiple opinions after he read the long list of names of the plurality and the concurring and dissenting he turned to his colleagues and said i didn't know there were that many people on this course. [laughter] >> there were more opinions than actual justices. islamic an attempted to ask ought to tell one of the liberty supreme court jokes. [laughter] >> the best one is [inaudible] >> take that he is >> -- the fine baptist lawyer who's a friend of pbgc said he just cut to the chase if the

material is hanging on the wall and easily removed, to get down to read if it's made of concrete in the ground it's too much trouble. but that is not tall lie in the courtroom and there is much more helpful guidance if you read those couple pages. >> i just wanted to use will holley said as an opportunity to remind us that the law is one thing. what is right is often another and in this country one of the struggles of religious freedom in my opinion is to live up to the principles and ideals in a way that is fair to everyone that allows everyone in the conversation, to get back to your point. for the simple, the wiccan community in this country is a growing community tried for years to get approval for their symbol to be on headstones in arlington and other -- they were

stonewalled and we can say all we want about them but the law requires the should have been treated like the others. there's a list that had approved symbols but it just didn't happen for years and years, so a lot of what goes on in the country in terms of treating people of a fairly and in violation of religious freedom, the law does not address. we address how we respond to people who are and minority groups or people who haven't had a voice and that's one of the challenges. this statement is kind of the floor but i think the challenge for the religious liberty is to live up to the principles and ways that listen to people and i would say also native american folks if they were sitting up here they would say what -- when is this winter apply to us. here's what the losses in this area and this area but there's a long string of defeat for native americans in the courts when they raise their religious

freedom issues instead of the fact it seems to protect almost everybody else on a lot of the same similar kinds of issues. so in these examples i feel we are talking about here an important agreement on what the laws is but then we need to think about what is the right thing to do as americans to live up to the first amendment and that is another challenge. >> this thing of gradual improvement on the religious front being stonewalled is better than being stoned. [laughter] >> being stoned was the highest thing. [laughter] >> we are back to the long -- bong -- never mind. >> i know some of you on the panel were deeply involved in litigation and his you say you hope this will reduce litigation so all the questions in here, which area do you hope you will see less cases in the courts about?

>> excellent question. are you all working against your own self-interest is with the leedy is asking. >> i would like to see a religious symbol litigation go away. there are now reasonably clear rules lawyers can apply and taking into account the charles notion correct motion what is legal is not necessarily what is right these are bitter debates about very little. i can think of cases where plaques stood on the corner of courthouses for 75 years and then somebody challenged it. yes, you understand why some people might be offended but nobody was for 75 years. on the other hand you have

states now enacting legislation putting up rather trivial commandments monuments disguised with other documents of american government most of which are eminently forgettable for the simple purpose of sticking it in other people's i. these generate intense litigation, lots of controversy, and nothing of any substance at all with regard to the place of religion in american life in any seriously. if that whole area of the law disappear because we simply were more measured and where we put symbols and then more measured and the response to pass through that filter i think we would be well ahead of the game. >> anyone else have a favored area the what this litigation? >> we hope that all of these -- we didn't necessarily a sign that to be lawyers. >> some of us are not old enough to retire yet.

>> we didn't sign of genesis of the engage in conflict over in russia and sometimes law seems to the al-sayyid server sort of to end up there. i have heard judge janis roger brown said in the d.c. circuit in say the distinction between the kentucky ten commandments it faces the weather and it is rain donner but in kentucky it was inside a building and this was the analysis she was willing to provide so it sort of reduces at that level can that really be something that bill ball makes these distinctions on and sometimes it seems that we so ultimately, the reason that you spend a considerable amount of time and as a noted it took about four and a half, five years to finally get to the place where we have when you have before you so the hope is that we can begin to develop further consensus and be out of business so i can do trust in

the states and life will be beautiful. >> most of the lawsuits in my opinion about religion and public schools, the real i am the most interested in here are frivolous and ridiculous and i think if they would read the sections here as brief as they are and then look more deeply at the earlier agreements i think many people might not fall to the could file. this is another run at reducing the silly fights. there are legitimate flights over the schools areas we still disagree on upholstered in a speech for captive audiences and constitutionality about these electives and so forth, so i'm not saying that it is an important for people to go to court when the need to. but many of the other kind of cases involving issues about including religious music and how the program and so forth i think our work could be, could go away if school districts not only knew the law but would

actually write and adopt policies in their own district that reflect the current law and then went on to their teachers and administrators know what the law says so than teachers and administrators and parents for that matter might stop fighting over what is already settled so i'm hopeful this statement will be another opportunity for public education to get this right. >> could i ask a question inspired by the gentleman representing if i can say the broad community of nonbelievers which ase has litigation -- does the fact that there are many more open atheists come on believers in the country people who say it out right, more organized, does this have an effect on either litigation or the nature of law and a follow-up to that and this goes to some work my friend of a political scientist john corrine has done that you have had more polarization in this area because you taught

simultaneously the rise of an active including intellectually and in the law evangelical community and a rise of the larger community of nonbelievers what effect does that have on what we are looking at here in the future -- get a huge impact. i think we are in my lifetime now before the second major revolution in the relation between religion and society. of the first was the epitomized by will herber's catholic protestant jew where the notion this was a sort of -- without saying so, the mores were protestant and everybody else sort of fit in somehow in that larger rubric. the disappeared beginning in the thirties and continued through the 60's. i think now some would say there's a resurgence of evangelicals into the public's

fear, but clearly now we face i think a major realignment and it's an important discussion it's going to lead to bitter litigation. it already has. like every group that comes there's a learning curve so some of the year earlier litigation by the secular groups has not necessarily raised the most serious issues. but at heart the queen of secularists is to look, the whole society and the government are so permeated with religious influence the we start of a disadvantage. it is level playing field a phrase you used before and we come to different results. and some in that community have expressed themselves of the view very popular taken for granted that religion is a purely private matter. its complaint and once you enter the public's fear we all enter

on the secular and even basis. i think will be the grave site of the next 20 years. i think how much of it will end up in litigation is hard to say because this court first of all has gutted the free exercise clause as a legal principle and because it is as currently configured it is not terribly active in looking to refer a larger social disputes with the documents like standing and pleading and so on. but i think in legislation and in public debate that is going to be the great subject for the next 20 years. you can see it in my view most clearly in the debate over the same-sex marriage where on the one hand you have people saying this is the traditional way we understand religion and you are vanishing knous as it were from the public sphere if we can't say that our understanding of

the marriage docket. on the other side you have claims the dominating the discussion on the internet that the ban on same-sex marriage is a form of a stock was above religion and that is not a technical argument. it is a profound argument about the nature of society is and how much will religion can play in the order and most fundamental ways of society. that is the next 20 years going to be a huge and very hard to manage debate. >> thank you. i want to call on the founding director of the institute on religion and civic values because i might have added to my list we also have if welford is but now it with the catholic protestant jew muslim seek hindu -- >> the title would be longer than the book. >> the title would be longer than the book. so, if you can grab the microphone there and join us. >> on a personal level this who is an honor because this journey has been a very long journey.