Ernest Istook

My father was the son of immigrants, and he grew up bilingual, but English is what my father taught me and what he spoke to me. America's strength is not our diversity it is our ability to unite around common principles even when we come from different backgrounds.

America's strength is not our diversity our strength is our ability to unite people of different backgrounds around common principles. A common language is necessary to reach that goal.

Americans should be free to recognize our religious heritage doing that is not the same as creating a government-sponsored religion.

The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.

There are a lot of Grinches out there that would like nothing better than to take any references to religion out of the holiday season.

The birth of democracy in Iraq is one of the great positive changes of our era.

We cannot sacrifice innocent human life now for vague and exaggerated promises of medical treatments thirty of forty years from now. There are ways to pursue this technology and respect life at the same time.

Out of control judicial activism threatens traditional marriage in America.

We need uniform protection of traditional marriage. You can't have different definitions on something as fundamental as marriage. The Marriage Protection Amendment is the only solution to this problem.

Home schooled children frequently combine for many purposes - and they interact well. The growth of the home schooling movement means that more and more children are learning together, just not in a traditional classroom.

I remind everyone: Whether you school them at home or send them to school, you as a parent have the responsibility to make sure they learn and behave. Teachers and principals may help, but parents are the ones who must accept responsibility.

Education begins at home and I applaud the parents who recognize that they - not someone else - must take responsibility to assure that their children are well educated.

Research and development needs permanent tax credits to build the technology that spurs our growth. But no government programs alone can get America's students to study more science and math parents must push and help their children to meet this goal.

It's good that the first half of the speech emphasized freedom, because George W. Bush has been the global champion for freedom. As he said, if we don't fight tyranny it will not leave us alone in peace.