Ann Widdecombe Quotes
If any further proof were needed that the Liberal Democrats live up to neither part of their name, then the treatment of Roman Catholic Robert Flello would have provided it. They were glad enough to have him when he defected from Labour but have now deselected him because he supports neither abortion nor gay marriage.
Widdecombe, Ann. Opinion column. Daily Express, Express Newspapers, 2019.
It took only 10 days after the First Continental Congress met for religious bigotry to arise. After hundreds of years of Catholic/Protestant strife, each sect looked upon the other, not only as theologically wrong, but dangerous to the liberty of the other. Unfortunately, the organied religions had acted so badly towards other religions, that everyone was justified in fearing the other religions. This quotation illustrates a then typical attitude of many American Protestants that the Catholic Church was a threat to national security. Ironically, in modern times, anti-Catholic bigots use this quotation to demonstrate that the United States was founded as a Christian Protestant nation—not a general Christian nation. A small, vicious anti-Catholic sentiment still exists, usually by a minority of right wing Protestant religious fundamentalists. Protestant England had just repealed the laws making Catholicism illegal, but this was regarded at that time as intolerable for the new America. This was one of the disputes which that the Founding Fathers were faced with later and one of the reasons that they were so absolute in the need for the 1st Amendment.
Ann Noreen Widdecombe is a British politician, author and television personality. She served as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone from 1987 to 1997 and for Maidstone and The Weald from 1997 to 2010. She also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England for the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2020.
