Quotes About Religious Freedom

#1. Muslim immigrants like himself encounter prejudice here [in U.S.] but also find political and religious freedom.

Tom Gjelten

#2. The traditional Jeffersonian principle of religious freedom was so broadly democratic that it included the right to have no religion at all - it gave to the individual the right to worship any God he chose or no god.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#3. His Holiness brings a wealth of experience to this exalted office. The United Nations and the Holy See share a strong commitment to peace, social justice, human dignity, religious freedom and mutual respect among the world's religions.

Kofi Annan

#4. To Americans religious freedom is sacred.

John Travolta

#5. Making Saudi Arabia a world judge on women's rights and religious freedom would be like naming a pyromaniac as the town fire chief.

Hillel Neuer

#6. We must protect the right of citizens to practice their religions freely. As president, I will support federal and state-level legislation like the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that protect citizens and their churches from government intrusion.

Carly Fiorina

#7. In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.

Thomas Jefferson

#8. the founders concluded, if God himself does not violate the religious freedom of man, then surely government shouldn't either.

David Platt

#9. And the whole world, the whole world that believes in freedom, whether you're talking about personal freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom, they look to the United States for leadership; and you're part of that leadership.

Don Nickles

#10. 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.

Frank Wolf

#11. Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.

Rick Perry

#12. Throughout our history Americans have put their faith in God and no one can doubt that we have been blessed for it. The earliest settlers of this land came came in search of religious freedom. Landing on a desolate shoreline, they established a spiritual foundation that has served us ever since.

Ronald Reagan

#13. We see our liberties curtailed more and more and more.We see a tremendous attack on religious freedom.

Rafael Cruz

#14. The concept of religious freedom is largely ignored in the curriculum of our nation's public schools.

Charles Haynes

#15. Government employees are public servants and prohibited by the Constitution from inhibiting religious freedom, that is a far cry from sneaking around and into a church and acting like KGB agents.

Mathew Staver

#16. Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty.

Harry S. Truman

#17. Religious freedom is too sacred a right to be restricted or prohibited in any degree without convincing proof that a legitimate interest of the state is in grave danger.

Frank Murphy

#18. Religious freedom is a fundamental human right.

Pope Francis

#19. We urge all people to recognize that religious freedom requires not trying to use the power of government to force religious ideas on others.

Ed Buckner

#20. At the political level, most Jews and most Catholics have accepted the liberal idea of religious freedom.

David Novak

#21. I come of Quaker stock. My ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs. Here they sought and found religious freedom. By blood and conviction I stand for religious tolerance both in act and in spirit.

Herbert Hoover

#22. In fact, some have said that the clash between Catholicism and Protestantism illustrates the old maxim that religious freedom is the product of two equally pernicious fanaticisms, each cancelling the other out

Fareed Zakaria

#23. As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World.

Meir Soloveichik

#24. So natural to mankind is intolerance ... that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized.

John Stuart Mill

#25. Religious freedom in an open society has the best prospects of flourishing to the extent that it expresses itself as freedom of religious inquiry.

Sidney Hook

#26. Multiculturalism is only in the West. We are absorbing a large number of Muslims in the west and at the same time the Christians and the Jews and other minorities are fleeing the Middle East, churches are being burnt, nobody is talking about it. Where are the religious freedom of the minorities.

Mark Durie

#27. The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#28. I've fought for religious freedom and I can tell you that anti-gay 'religious freedom' bills aren't it.

DaShanne Stokes

#29. The plan was always to come to America, because Pakistan's a scary place. They don't have religious freedom. It's very poor, and there's a lot of violence and corruption.

Kumail Nanjiani

#30. I can't imagine why a media company views a law preventing the commission of hate speech as a restriction on media freedom, but it is probably similar to how some religious folk view hate speech as being essential to religious freedom.

Christina Engela

#31. Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.

Walter Koenig

#32. It is important that social, political, and religious freedoms grow in China. A society which recognizes religious freedom is a society which will recognize political freedom as well.

George W. Bush

#33. I think it's a bill that puts a high priority on religious freedom and recognizes that as a part of the balance.

Asa Hutchinson

#34. Religious freedom is already protected in the United States. It's in our Constitution. It's in most state constitutions.

Dannel Malloy

#35. Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.

Sam Ervin

#36. [ ... ] pluralism implies religious tolerance, not unchecked religious freedom.

Reza Aslan

#37. Under the rubric of religious freedom, we respect the right to worship differently much more than the right to worship not at all.

Wendy Kaminer

#38. I had immigrant grandparents who came to this country and came for religious freedom and loved it, never made any money, Bronx, Brooklyn, but loved America. And they told me every day it's the greatest country in the world.

Dan Rosensweig

#39. In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.

Thomas Jefferson

#40. The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.

William J. Brennan

#41. We do not credit to the ideal of religious freedom when we talk as though religious belief is something of which public-spirited adults should be ashamed.

Stephen L. Carter

#42. Religious institutions should have religious freedom on this issue. No church or minister should ever have to conduct a marriage that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs. But I think as a civil institution, this issue's time has come and we need to move forward.

Kay Hagan

#43. We have the most religious freedom of any country in the world, including the freedom not to believe.

William J. Clinton

#44. If the president of the United States says that attacks on civilians, starvation, and denial of religious freedom in Sudan are important international issues, they become so.

Elliott Abrams

#45. If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system.

Sam Ervin

#46. The law for religious freedom ... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.

Thomas Jefferson

#47. No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your 'religious freedom'. If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

Barack Obama

#48. The Point, not unlike the Communist Chinese, the ACLU abhors individual religious freedom, and it supports only those civil liberties that fit its narrow political agenda.

Mark Hyman, M.D.

#49. The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.

Thomas Jefferson

#50. Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

Robert F. Kennedy

#51. Many evangelicals believe religious freedom, if not religion itself, faces major problems with the government in the future.

Joel Hunter

#52. If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office.

Theodore Roosevelt

#53. 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.

Pope Benedict XVI

#54. I think we recognize as Americans there are certain things that are just primary to the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy here and religious freedom is one of the most important things we as Americans cherish.

Ann Romney

#55. Religious freedom opens a door for Americans that is closed to too many others around the world. But whether we walk through that door, and what we do with our lives after we do, is up to us.

Mitt Romney

#56. Your right of religious freedom ends where my right of religious abstinence begins ...

T. Rafael Cimino

#57. To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy.

Keith O'Brien

#58. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.

Barack Obama

#59. The HHS rule blatantly denies the breadth of First Amendment protection, and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, under which Congress promotes First Amendment liberty by prohibiting government from unduly burdening religious freedom.

Andrew McCarthy

#60. America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional.

Mark McKinnon

#61. The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life.

Jimmy Carter

#62. Protection of religious freedom means considering the faiths and beliefs of everyone involved.

Mike Quigley

#63. In the name of religious freedom, relativists have banished religion from the public square. They say they have to destroy public displays of religion in order to protect it. They response has been a culturewide gag order on Christianity in governmental and even commercial circumstances.

Robert H. Knight

#64. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana does not give anyone the right to deny services to anyone in this state. It is simply a balancing test used by our federal courts and jurisdictions across the country for more than two decades.

Mike Pence

#65. I think it is appropriate that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom.

John F. Kennedy

#66. The right to religious freedom has its foundation, not in the church or society or the state, but in the very dignity of the human person.

John Courtney Murray

#67. Despite much talk in this land about religious freedom, churches and their schools now confront grave difficulties.

Russell Kirk

#68. Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.

John Quincy Adams

#69. Religious freedom certainly means the right to worship God, individually and in community, as our consciences dictate. But religious liberty, by its nature, transcends places of worship and the private sphere of individuals and families.

Pope Francis

#70. I believe strongly in the Constitutional principle of separating church and state. Our founders were right in fearing that religious freedom would be threatened in the long run by a departure from governmental neutrality in spiritual matters.

Sargent Shriver

#71. Her [Jurdge Sandra Day O'Connor] judgment has also been critical in protecting our environmental rights. She joined in 5-4 majorities affirming reproductive freedom and religious freedom and the Voting Rights Act.

Patrick Leahy

#72. But I think it is also important that we pay tribute and acknowledge another great principle, and that is the principle of religious conviction. Religious freedom has no significance unless it is accompanied by conviction.

John F. Kennedy

#73. Human rights and individual liberties, including religious freedom, will be at the heart of the new Iraq.

Jalal Talabani

#74. I'm up here in Cleveland tonight and there are a lot of folks who are concerned about it. Twenty-five percent of the people up here get their health care through religious organizations and so that religious freedom issue is very important to them.

Rob Portman

#75. What does religious freedom mean if we would use it as a cover for hate and privilege?

DaShanne Stokes

#76. The ACLU's various policies regarding religious freedom in public schools are a revealing collection of anti-religious bias.

F. LaGard Smith

#77. Ever since you're little you hear this: 'The pilgrims left England to escape religious persecution and sneak religious freedom into the new world.' But even when you're little you're like, 'Umm.. Bullsh*t?'

Greg Proops

#78. It might be said that religious freedom in the American sense, incorporating the separation of church and state, has been the pivotal concept of the national development of the United States of America.

Joseph Leon Blau

#79. Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us.

John Irving

#80. Usually, it is not my habit to address religious issues on the floor. I strongly believe in a person's right to religious freedom, as well as the separation of church and state.

Alcee Hastings

#81. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#82. People keep framing this as a religious freedom issue, but there's a difference between practicing your religion - which everyone has the right to do - and rubbing your religion in people's faces as a triumphalist political statement, which is what's happening here.

Pat Condell

#83. The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].

Thomas Jefferson

#84. Marriage partners, not government, should define the terms and spiritual orientation of their union in accordance with our nation's guarantee of religious freedom.

Michael Badnarik

#85. It should be made clear that religious freedom DOES NOT include the right to persecute others, nor the right to take away their humanity and equal treatment before the law.

Christina Engela

#86. Blessed be the memory of those few brethren who contended so strenuously for their constitutional rights and religious freedom, against such an overwhelming force of desperadoes!

Joseph Smith Jr.

#87. The growing tide of anti-Semitism shocks the conscious of everyone who values freedom, and the ugly, hateful acts particularly stain the character of democracies where liberty and religious freedom are supposed to be respected.

Mike Ferguson

#88. I pray the Pope Francis can use his moral authority to inspire true religious freedom, and bring us closer to the day when freedom can finally take root on the island country; because only then will the people of Cuba prosper and have the opportunity to live out God's plan.

Marco Rubio

#89. By the time Genghis Khan arrived to give his newest subjects their religious freedom, after first brutalizing them into submission, Darjmainia had developed its own very complex, partially amalgamated collection of sacred stories

Tony McMillen

#90. The Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom ranked for Jefferson as one of the three achievements worthy of gracing his tombstone (the Declaration of Independence and the University of Virginia were the other two).

Matthew Stewart

#91. If we really want to cherish religious freedom, people who want to believe that same-sex marriage should take place, they have a right to believe that, and people who want to believe it's inappropriate, we should not demonize those people - if we really believe in religious liberty.

Foster Friess

#92. While I've found many of the religious shows I've viewed over the years not to be to my liking, or in line with my own beliefs, I've never considered it my place to exert any greater type of censorship than changing the channel, or better yet - turning off the TV completely.

Bill Hicks

#93. 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.

William Anthony Donohue

#94. While these Christians (the majority in a recent poll) are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,

David Kinnaman

#95. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.

Mitt Romney

#96. We in the United States should be all the more thankful for the freedom and religious tolerance we enjoy. And we should always remember the lessons learned from the Holocaust, in hopes we stay vigilant against such inhumanity now and in the future.

Charlie Dent

#97. Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.

G.K. Chesterton

#98. Forgiveness of sins is great, but I'd rather have the ability to quit doing the things I keep needing forgiveness for.

D.R. Silva

#99. The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.

Shashi Tharoor

#100. Genghis Khan decreed religious tolerance for all of his conquered peoples. So I think he definitely would approve of our constitutional protections of freedom of religion. I think he would also approve of the way the U.S. has been able to attract talented people from all over the world.

Amy Chua