I've been around here for a while, and when this flap over the pledge came up two weeks ago, I wanted to avoid the attendant press and any hard feelings and anything that reflected badly on the House of Delegates as much as anything I've ever wished since I've been here, because, Mr. Speaker, number one, I hate the politics of race. We're not talking about the Confederate flag, we're not talkin about the state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia." It's not that.

And so, Mr. Speaker, what I've tried to do with you, along with the gentleman from Virginia Beach (Del. Robert F. McDonnell), is come to some sort of solution. We decided to work on the wording, hopefully it would be acceptable, because it was offensive to some members of the Black Caucus, and it was offensive to me, and I'll tell you why.

When I went home this weekend, I went to one of my local hot dog stands. This is what I call one of my bubba stands.

You know the type: they're driving Ford F10s, where the baseball caps that they get from the convenience store tell you right what they have on their mind right away. And when we talked about this, I laid out my position, and they told me theirs in no uncertain terms, and it became clear that we in fact were talking past each other.

We were in different worlds in terms of relating to what was going on with these 30 words. Mr. Speaker, this place, this chamber, has always been about courtesy.

Now, I commend Rule 57 to those new members who have never read it. Rule 57 says simply that no member shall debate, use any language or gesture calculated to wound, offend or insult another member.

Now, this rule has always set the tone in this chamber. I hasten to add that Rule 57 does not really apply to the pledge because it's not used in debate, it is not calculated to offend.

However, Mr. Speaker, I mention it because the tone set by that rule has always prevailed in this body. Now many of you are sitting there asking, "Well, how do these 30 words offend you, Del. Melvin?" And please note this: I am not just directing this at the Republicans.

Many of my colleagues on the Democratic side are asking the very same question. I understand and accept that.

The words themselves, Mr. Speaker, are not offensive. My problem is a contextual objection -- the context in which the words were written, adopted in the legislature in 1954, and how they became part of the rules of this House.

There are three parts of this concoction that make it unpalatable to me, even, even ascribing the best of motivations, which I will.

Who wrote it? A member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Now, from what I've read in the press clippings, this lady was a nice woman, according to people who knew her.

And I'm going to assume that she was as nice as Aunt Bea on that old Andy Griffith show, and that her dealings with the United Daughters of the Confederacy flow from her wanting to celebrate the Confederacy, and her family's part in it.

The 1954 adoption in the General Assembly? Well, the segregation cases had been working their way their way through the U.S. Supreme Court since 1951, and this time was a prelude to Brown v. Board of Education and Massive Resistance.

And I'm told that the delegate who patroned the resolution was an Adlai Stevenson Democrat. I ascribe no bad motive.

Then there was its adoption into the rules of this House two weeks ago on an amendment by the gentleman from Virginia Beach, Mr. McDonnell, and I will tell you, members of the House, that I have spent so much time with the gentleman from Virginia Beach on Courts of Justice (committee) that I could more accurately vote for him than his wife.

I ascribe him no bad motive. Bob is as decent as the day is long, although I do believe, Mr. Speaker, that he does have a lot of Eddie Haskell in him. (laughter)

It's the combination that's the problem for me.

When I think Confederacy, I don't think about our brave Southern boys during the War. I think about human bondage, and all the attendant degradation that goes with it.

When I think about the prelude to Massive Resistance, and Massive Resistance itself, I think about the most backward part of Virginia history during the last century.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it was led by Democrats, which you've reminded me over and over the last few days.

Mr. Speaker, how do I deal with thoughts of human bondage and massive resistance? Well, sort of like a trauma victim who's been savagely attacked in his youth.

Years later, I just try to block it out. Block it out. Every day, the every-day saying of this pledge, does not allow me to do that.

While you're reciting those words with fervor, I'm thinking about the context. Now, the question becomes, does this position, which is essentially emotional, stand up to intellectual scrutiny? Maybe it does, maybe it does not.

But I ask you members of the House, does it really matter? Are you so intent on avoiding what appears to be political correctness that you are willing to offend me? If you are, that's a new one in this chamber.

Mr. Speaker, I don't even know with all the turnover whether we have any Jewish members in this chamber now. But I can remember when we did. We paid special attention to make certain that our words weren't taken the wrong way, and we did it in a very personal way.

We would actually go down and ask them. We did that, because that's the way we did business, and we dealt with that level of civility.

Now, Mr. Speaker, members of the House, whether or not you buy my emotional respsonse or not, it's real. I don't want echoes of bondage and segregation tainting my present, and certainly not our future. If even two of you told me that something I did or said offended you, even if I thought it was totally unreasonable, I wouldn't do it again. We historically have that level of courtesy and civility in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I tell you now that more than a handful of your brethren are offended by this, and I ask you and the members of the house to respond accordingly. Thank you. (Transcribed by Holly A. Heyser, The Virginian-Pilot, January 24, 2002)