Mario Cuomo Quotes

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Religion must be disciplined by democracy.

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

Political freedom is a political reading of the Bible.

Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.

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.

By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.

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

Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief. [Article 28, 1889 Constitution] Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all. No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority. 2) No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious acts, celebration, rite or practice. 3) The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity. [Article 20, 1946 Constitution]

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

This wicked system is based on freedom of religion and belief and freedom of speech and separation of religion and politics. Democracy is heresy itself.

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

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.

You've got to protect the system of secular faith in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and Enlightenment values. That way, you can protect all religions.

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

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.

I certainly do not support excluding faith from public life.

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

A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.

I'm just confused as to where we lost that in America because it is everyone's God-given right to think the way they think and that's fine. That's why our ancestors came here to America, to believe what they want, pray how they want and follow a religion with whoever they want.

The reason religion has thrived in America is because we have a free market in religion. I am opposed to theocracy.

No religious consensus is possible in the United States, and to impose one would be both unconstitutional and unjust.

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious professors therefore, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.

The tendency of the spirit of the age is strong toward religious liberty.