John F. Kennedy Quotes

The first amendment makes it clear that we are free to practice religion without government interference. The Constitution also establishes the separation of church and state so that the laws we live by our never guided by religious zeal.

From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office.

The Government of the United States possesses no power whatever over the question of religion.

Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect.

On the issues of religious liberty, the Supreme Court continues to scrape against the bedrock of the American spirit.

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

The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.

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

The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.

I would sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, our first amendment rights, so Christian business owners and individuals don't face discrimination for having a traditional view of marriage.

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.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

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

There's no religious test under the constitution. That's what it says. Period.

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

Whether the Sikhs want to worship in Wisconsin or the Christians want to worship in Texas or the Jews want to worship in New York, we're living under the magnificent umbrella of a Constitution that says we can.

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.

It belongs to American liberty to separate entirely the institution which has for its object the support and diffusion of religion from the political government.

The 1st Amendment was established to ensure, in addition to free exercise, that the state did not have the power to establish any particular religious teaching.

Today, the religion clauses of the 1st Amendment do not need to be fixed; they need to be followed.

To say that religion cannot stand without a state establishment is not only contrary to fact (as has been proved already) but is a contradiction in phrase.

Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.

We stand for a free church in a free state. Neither one should control the affairs of the other. We support the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with its "establishment" and "free exercise" clauses.

We do not expect that Congress is acquainted with our religious faith; but ... we do claim the guarantees of the Constitution and immunity from persecution on merely religious grounds.

What is crucial is that a government practice not have the effect of communicating a message of governmental endorsement or disapproval of religion.