Gary Johnson Quotes

The phrase 'religious liberty' has become an overused talisman. Most of the invocations lately have nothing to do with actual infringements of free exercise [of religion]. They're about political and cultural dissent from gay rights.

The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution.

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.

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.

Religious freedom, often referred to as the first freedom, is of central import to the American experiment. As such it should feature prominently in U.S. foreign policy.

Part of the Koran is a license for oppression.

Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on non-adherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.

I cut my teeth on religious liberty issues.

Our religious freedoms are under constant attack from a variety of groups who seek to undermine our constitutional rights and threaten our founding principles.

A number of women have reportedly been victims of what appear to be discriminatory decisions taken by Sharia councils, and that is a significant concern.

In my opinion, you start messing with what this country was founded on, and our baseline is what we call it, it opens up too many - too many doors. You start messing with that, people can say religion kills people. So, let's start messing with that.

It was precisely my love of the First Amendment that made me join sidewalk activists in 2010 to support an Islamic community center's right to open in Lower Manhattan.

The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights

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?

I am always revolted when Islamic leaders, from Afghanistan or elsewhere, deny the very existence of female oppression, avoid the issue by pointing to examples of what they view as Western mistreatment of women, or even worse, justify the oppression of women on the basis of notions derived from Sharia law.

I knew that my interest lied in international stories. I was interested in how women were living under the Taliban, for example.

I tell fundamentalists that there is no question of them attacking our Republic's foundations.

We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken Him out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention the name of Jesus Christ in any public forum.

I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state. It was not written into the Constitution.

I cannot reconcile monitoring certain people for no reason other than their religion with the freedom of religion we have here in America.

It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.

From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office.

I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims, they are not totally dedicated to this country. They are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.