Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. Free Press, 2006.
At the time Kaunitz was a young lawyer and diplomat who had abandoned the church career that his parents had hoped for him.
The Senate was presented with James Madison’s Language for the First Amendment. These three alternatives were proposed and rejected. The rejected versions turn out to have been very important. Some have argued that the First Amendment does not prohibit Congress making laws regarding religion as long as it doesn’t favor one religion over another—for example pay for clerics of all religions. However, that was the third proposal and it was rejected in favor of the high wall of separation proposed by Madison.
Although the Puritans were the first religious group of immigrants who came to America for religious freedom, once the obtained it, they were terribly despotic in trying to force others to adopt their religious views. By seeking religious freedom the planted the seeds of democracy. By denying it to others, they also planted the seed of the First Amendment. Those who insisted upon separation of church and state always cited the Puritans as example one of what can happen with an established church in America.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, feminist, author, scholar and former politician. She received international attention as a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, actively opposing forced marriage, honor violence, child marriage and female genital mutilation. She has founded an organisation for the defense of women's rights, the AHA Foundation. Ayaan Hirsi Ali works for the Hoover Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.
