December 8, 2005—Today, Speaker Hastert will switch on the lights of the Capitol Christmas Tree.  For over four decades, this annual tree has been displayed on the West Front Lawn of the Capitol Building.  Since 1995, that tree has been called the “Capitol Holiday Tree” in order to sound politically correct.  This year, Speaker Hastert quashed that change by renaming the pine the “Capitol Christmas Tree.”  In celebration of today’s ceremonial lighting and the name change, Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) had this to say:

“Those who possess even the slightest acquaintance with American history know that the Judeo-Christian principles were the essential body of rationale and substance that inspired the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.  The liberal left seeks to destroy any vestige of this nation's religious heritage and history. They seek not to prevent the establishment of religion but to forever ban the free exercise thereof.  Indeed, they are determined to rewrite America's history devoid of any mention or trace of the very ideals that gave birth to the Land of Freedom in the first place.”

Franks went on to say, “I applaud Speaker Hastert for taking on these unreasonable attacks on America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and for bringing the word “Christmas” back into the United States Capitol.  If America does not prevail against this onslaught of historical revisionism and religious intolerance, the left will not stop until we have chiseled every last Christian Cross and Star of David from the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery.”

Trent Franks is the Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona.  He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and Vice Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee.