Simon Schama Quotes

Nothing is more important to me, and nothing was more important to our founding fathers, than freedom of religion.

No religious consensus is possible in the United States, and to impose one would be both unconstitutional and unjust.

There is little doubt that religious liberty is best exercised within the setting of the secular state.

What does religious freedom look like? As America gets more religiously diverse, the concept is getting harder to define …. You can get 10 different groups in the room and they will disagree about what religious liberty is.

A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.

I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President, should he be a Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners how to vote.... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish ... for while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist.

The reason religion has thrived in America is because we have a free market in religion. I am opposed to theocracy.

Freedom of religion, as the Founding Fathers saw it, was not just the right to associate oneself with a certain denomination but the right to disassociate without penalty.

Permit liberty of conscience in matters of religion to all persons.

Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief. [Article 28, 1889 Constitution] Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all. No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority. 2) No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious acts, celebration, rite or practice. 3) The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity. [Article 20, 1946 Constitution]

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights.

Americans did not come here to escape religion. The came here to escape established religion.

It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.

Freedom of religion does not entitle your religion to have a privileged position within the public sphere.

Religious liberty should be a bipartisan issue.

As a preacher who has spent significant time in churches and houses of worship all across the country, I can tell you firsthand that religious liberty and freedom are principles that can never be infringed upon.

Religion is extremely important in this democracy - so important that it occupies a prime position in the Bill of Rights.

Government needs to stay out of the religion business altogether.

Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I'm just confused as to where we lost that in America because it is everyone's God-given right to think the way they think and that's fine. That's why our ancestors came here to America, to believe what they want, pray how they want and follow a religion with whoever they want.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to practice faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.