William Rehnquist Quotes

There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion

Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform

In Europe liberty meant a struggle against the church. Freedom meant freedom from religion whereas in America freedom meant freedom for religion.

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

Unbelievers in this country have rights but they don’t have the right to veto everybody else.

Don't Politicize Churches! Houses Of Worship Should Not Be Part Of A Political Machine

We stand for a free church in a free state. Neither one should control the affairs of the other. We support the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with its "establishment" and "free exercise" clauses.

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

There is a fundamental difference in the perspectives from which Islam and the West view the matter of human rights. The Western perspective may ... be called anthropocentric and the perspective of Islam is theocentric - God conscious... In essence, the believer has only obligations or duties towards God since he is called upon to obey the Divine Law. Paradoxically, in these duties lie all the rights and freedoms

I believe in the absolute separation of church and state and in the strict enforcement of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Freedom is won by relegating religion to a purely private sphere remote from the body politic. In fact, the establishment of a free society is predicated on the idea that religion must be surgically removed from culture.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

The world will not know liberty until all that is religious and political is transformed into something simple and human and made susceptible to criticism and denial.

The United States cannot and should not discriminate on the basis of religion. The free exercise of religion is at the very heart of our constitutional guarantee for all persons of this country.

I wanted to be a priest when I was really young.

The United States may be a religious nation. But it is also a nation with a strong commitment to separation of church and state.

There are some who apparently feel that the fight for freedom is separate from the Gospel. They express it in several ways, but it generally boils down to this: Just live the gospel; there's no need to get involved in trying to save freedom and the Constitution or stop communism.... Should we counsel the people, 'Just live your religion - there's no need to get involved in the fight for freedom?' No we should not, because our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion.

If American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible

This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made. It won't be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.

[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

Of the five rights listed in the First Amendment. - religion, speech, press, assembly, petition - the very first right protected is freely exercising our religion.

In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.

Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state.

I tried for about two semesters in a preparatory seminary. But I was about 15 and didn't fully understand what a vocation means.

Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.