Hugo Black Quotes

The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history.

Quite often you hear people say, 'What about separation of church and state?' There is no such thing.

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

The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rathe, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other.

The First Amendment...does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Church and State....Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other - hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly....The state may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.

Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state.

I think the founding fathers believed religion shouldn't interact directly with government.

It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.

I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.

In the instant case, it is undisputed that the Cobb County School Board used the money of taxpayers to produce and place the Sticker in dispute in certain of the Cobb County School District science textbooks. This Sticker aids the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists. In light of the prior interpretation of the Georgia Constitution provision challenged by the Plaintiffs and given the Court's conclusion above that the Sticker violates the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, the Court likewise concludes that the Sticker runs afoul of the Georgia Constitution.

The “establishment of religion” clause of the 1st Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.

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

Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government.

the separation of church and state grew out of a desire, not so much to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government.

The Founders intended only to prevent the establishment of a single national denomination, not to restrain public religious expressions.

The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.

No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.

In the case Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that - under 'separation of church and state' - it was unconstitutional for a student in school to even see a copy of the Ten Commandments.

The disconnection of Church and State was a master stroke for freedom and harmony.

I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.

When church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued.

Religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.

What James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them.

Why not admit that the words separation and church do not even appear in the US Constitution, he added. Instead, they do appear in Article 52 of the Constitution of the Soviet Union.

The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet.