JOHN C. DANFORTH

Japan is a great nation. It should begin to act like one.

I was to Japanese visitors to Washington what the Mona Lisa is to Americans visiting Paris.

The loudest voices we hear are those who advocate conflict, divisiveness.

How do we stop ourselves from blowing each other up because we think that God wants us to blow each other up.

Whatever this gay marriage amendment is all about, it certainly does not belong in the U. S. Constitution…. It is a drummed up political issue that amounts to gay bashing.

There is nothing as potentially polarizing as religion.

Politicians do what they hear from the American people.

If a political party becomes a sectarian party, that is a problem…. Dividing the country along religious lines is just not worth any possible benefit.

The Republican Party has become the party of one branch of one religion.

The error of the Christian right is that in its attempt to codify the requirements of faith in a legislative program, it crowds out the demands of the Love Commandment …. ‘Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.’[

Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of the conservative Christians.

Did the Government kill people?

It [television] has locked candidates into ridiculous positions because only ridiculous positions can be compacted into 30-second commercials.

Some governments are corrupt but are known for their competency in running the city. Others are incompetent but are considered "clean." [Washington] DC's government is scandalously corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.

The most important thing a politician can do is try to keep the country glued together.

The tort system has correctly been called the lottery system.

Religion has been so divisive that people have killed one another, believing they were doing the work of God.

The Senate is indeed a deliberative body, and that quality serves the nation well. A slow-moving government helps us maintain a stable government. But slow moving is not the same as immobile.

Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves.

I think a lot of us share a fear that we and people we love will lose control of our own destinies at the end of life.

We are seekers of the truth, but we do not embody the truth. And in humility, we should recognize that the same can be said about our most ardent foes.

The problem is not that Christians are conservative or liberal, but that some are so confident that their position is God's position that they become dismissive and intolerant toward others and divisive forces in our national life.

In the Middle East, Iraq, Sudan, the former Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, and many other places in the world, religion has been so divisive that people have killed one another, believing they were doing the work of God.

Blood is shed over politics, religion and the two in combination.

We have a God-given commission, but it is not a commission to be self-righteous know-it-alls- quite the contrary. Our work in God's world begins with the acknowledgment that we are not God, and that our most bitter rivals are made in God's image.