Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

Our rights do not come from God. That's your faith, that's my faith, but that's not our country.

America is a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.

Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.

The right to religious freedom and the right to vote are both fundamental to our democracy.

I believe in democracy. I also believe in religious freedom.

Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course.

It's time to resist efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union who have conducted a religious lobotomy on this country, seeking to strip it of any vestige of religious influence.

The ACLU sues no matter what public property a religious symbol is placed on.

If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn.

To the ACLU, the First Amendment speaks more directly to freedom from religion than it does to freedom of religion.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.

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

While the struggle for religious liberty had proceeded without large-scale bloodshed in New England and elsewhere in the United States, the struggle for political liberty had not fared so well.

I think we recognize as Americans there are certain things that are just primary to the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy here and religious freedom is one of the most important things we as Americans cherish.

I believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America.

Religious freedom is already protected in the United States. It's in our Constitution. It's in most state constitutions.

We cannot accept that democratic freedoms need to be abrogated to protect Islam.

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

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition—well, they are still radical ideas.

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

We want a separation of church and state, but we also want the human and civil rights of all people. Religion is a human right.

Religious freedom must include the right to influence public policy within the bounds of liberal norms.

There will necessarily be a tension between the church and tradition on one hand and human rights on the other.

Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions, or a veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others. However, today, as in the past, religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality. In our nation’s past religion has been used to justify slavery and later, Jim Crow laws. We now see “religious liberty” arguments sneaking their way back into our political and constitutional discourse (just like the concept of “state rights”) in an effort to undermine the rights of some Americans.