George W. Bush Quotes

Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection.

The phrase 'religious liberty' has become an overused talisman. Most of the invocations lately have nothing to do with actual infringements of free exercise [of religion]. They're about political and cultural dissent from gay rights.

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.

Nowhere have the forces of intolerance been displayed less tolerantly than in the area of religious speech and practice.

Everyone - whether it's the Jews, the Greeks, the Catholics - everybody is entitled to religious beliefs and entitled to their traditions.

I believe that nothing enjoys a higher estate in our society than the right given by the First and Fourteenth Amendments freely to practice and proclaim one's religious convictions.

The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.

Growing up in Britain as a rather loose Jew, the two things that didn't belong together were freedom and religious intensity. In America, they do. The Founding Fathers made a bet that if you didn't force everyone to profess religion in their own particular way, you could protect intellectual freedom, and religion would flourish.

The “establishment of religion” clause of the 1st Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.

Government has no more right to help us Christians flaunt our beliefs than it has to suppress any faith.

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

It was precisely my love of the First Amendment that made me join sidewalk activists in 2010 to support an Islamic community center's right to open in Lower Manhattan.

Of the five rights listed in the First Amendment. - religion, speech, press, assembly, petition - the very first right protected is freely exercising our religion.

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right.

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.

America didn't create religious liberty. Religious liberty created America.

The zealous disdain for religion in American jurisprudence amounts to intolerance. Keith Fournier of the American Center for Law and Justice concludes that 'the ones not being tolerated are religious people who dare make any kind of religious reference or take any kind of religious posture outside the private arena.

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.

The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.

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.

The freedom to convert is fundamental to freedom of religion.

America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.

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

I don't think my religious convictions should be held against me.