Religious Stereotyping Quotes

Did I not tell you earlier that a Jew is such a noble, precious jewel that God and all the angels dance when he farts?

When I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.

Extremists exist in every religion, thought and civilisation. Islam is no more inherently violent than Christianity or Judaism, and the fact that there are extremists in Islam does not justify holding Islam-the religion-hostage to distorted images and clichés. Didn't a Jewish extremist kill former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin? Did anyone call it Jewish extremism? When Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma, no one dared describe it as Christian terrorism. So why is it when a Muslim commits some foolish act, that his or her religious identity becomes the marker here?

A bad Muslim is an anti-American Muslim. A good Muslim is a pro-American Muslim. This is what seems to be the operational definition.

The point in the report is that you shouldn't say to somebody just because they're Jewish, you must have an opinion on Israel. Any more than you say to anyone who is a Muslim you must have an opinion on any vile action that's been taken by misquoting the good name of Islam. I just ask people to be respectful and inclusive in their debate.

If there were a bunch of Buddhist or Hindus or Roman Catholics carrying out grotesque acts of international terror, I would expect to see their faces on the side of bus.

If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists' work for them.

Every time a crime was committed by a Muslim, that person's faith was mentioned, regardless of its relevance. When a crime is committed by a Christian, do they mention his religion? ... When a crime is committed by a black man, it's mentioned in the first breath: 'An African American man was arrested today...' But what about German Americans? Anglo Americans? A white man robs a convenience store and do we hear he's of Scottish descent? In no other instance is the ancestry mentioned.

I feel a little uncomfortable at being asked the sorts of questions that other Catholics in public life tend not to be asked.

I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That's not true... That would let the terrorists win. That's what they want us to do.

Beware of generalizations about any faith because they sometimes amount to the religious equivalent of racial profiling. Hinduism contained both Gandhi and the fanatic who assassinated him.

It is immoral to brand children with religion. 'This is a Catholic child.' 'That is a Muslim child.' I want everyone to flinch when they hear such a phrase, just as they would if they heard, 'That is a Marxist child.'

You cannot classify a whole group of people based upon their religion and determine their intent. That's not fair. It's not American.

You know you're in a bad movie when the Catholic clergy is being played by Jews.