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beliefs beyond that which you must not
and need not do.
Write a constitution for Maryland. Do
not insult the people based on some deci-
sions of the Supreme Court which do not
require you to do them.
If you wish to go to the people and have
this constitution adopted, give them at
least some basis for believing that we have
acted responsibly. No person's beliefs can
be offended by having a complete and free
option in this situation. Nobody acts under
compulsion. There is no legal sanction.
There is no personal sanction. There is no
requirement of any kind in this situation.
I urge this Convention at least to leave
this modicum for option for those people
who still believe that there is a Superior
Being.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
delegate desire to speak in favor of the
amendment?
Delegate Key.
DELEGATE KEY: Mr. President and
other delegates.
I simply would like to say that I am
insulted — and I am a religious person —
that God has to be put in parenthesis. This
is my objection. If there is to be an option,
it should be the other way around.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further dis-
cussion? Are you ready for the question?
Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Pres-
ident, by what happened out of my presence
you afforded me a perfect opportunity at
humor; however, I have no desire at hu-
mor, not so much because of the subject,
but because of what happened here earlier.
I want to publicly say that as the son of
an immigrant it grieves me to know that
an immigrant would try to cut off debate
knowing that the sponsor has not had an
opportunity to speak.
Now, as to the case that Delegate Mac-
donald spoke of, please distinguish readily
between that case and the facts here.
In that case each day a child was re-
quired to stand and either participate or
stand out as a sore thumb. We are not
talking about the same thing.
Now, in order to make certain that I
would not take too much time, I prepared
a statement which I would like to read at
this time.
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For a length of time now, stretching
into centuries, our forefathers of this State
of Maryland very grandly and mightily
proclaimed a freedom to be religious and
God-fearing, which freedom has served the
people of this State well.
Some now want to corrupt this hallowed
concept, to mean a State free of God, any
mention of God, and any reference to God.
This constitution is being molded through
the efforts of all 142 delegates to this Con-
vention by collective reasoning, argument
and voting, and by the adoption of the pre-
amble as proposed by a committee. This
collective bargaining, reasoning and voting
has proved overwhelmingly that this body
does not, in fact, want to continue the tra-
dition and show of respect.
On November 6 of this year, without
great amounts of grand oratory or heated
argument, and without the witticism at-
tached to cutting and biting ridicule of
honest effort, we spontaneously reflected
our collective consciences by favorably
adopting this provision which grants an
option to an officer of this State to com-
mence his oath and his term of office with
a traditional oath, "In the presence of Al-
mighty God."
We are a Convention of representatives
meeting for the purpose of writing a living
constitution for the people we represent.
We are not a committee of lawbook pub-
lishing companies preparing an appendix
for a text on State government.
To those of you who have pause about
a contrary reaction from the courts, there
is on your desk a precise statement indi-
cating no such fear on the part of our
research staff.
I strongly urge you to disregard the
last paragraph of that memorandum, which
obviously is a personal reference and not
based on any law.
To those of you who voted against this
provision because of the use of paren-
thesis to exercise the option and not the
requirement, let me say first that the
form of the amendment was forced on me
by the knowledge that the statement must
be optional to comply with the current
thinking of the Supreme Court.
Let me suggest that at the time of the
use of this clause, there will be no refer-
ence to such parentheses, but rather will
read as one continuous sentence.
If this is in fact your only complaint in
grammar and sentence structure, present
us with the amendment necessary to cor-
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