Gary Bauer Quotes

Nowhere have the forces of intolerance been displayed less tolerantly than in the area of religious speech and practice.

It is interesting to me that the secularizers bend over backward in our federally controlled schools to keep atheists from being offended by the mention of God, prayer, or morality, yet over the federally controlled airwaves Christians can be offended every day of the week by the broadcasting of blasphemy against God and the Lord Jesus Christ or attacks on our moral values.

Over the years since I became a Christian, I have always deliberately explained that I have 'accepted Jesus Christ.' These words are invariably translated into 'Colson's professed religious experience.' I discovered that one major U.S. daily, as a matter of policy, will not print the two words Jesus Christ together; when combined, the editor says, it represents an editorial judgment.

Of course, certain religious expressions are fine. If a tribe of Aqualishes wants to boil rhino horns in frog saliva on the National Mall to honor their deity, we'd have a commemorative postage stamp ready by next December. But let a Christian mention the baby Jesus to a kindergarten class and the ACLU wants an exorcism.

People of faith should be able to have confidence in their right to freely express and live their beliefs.

Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet, as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to ‘Rose of Mohammad’ pastries … This is a punishment for those who started misusing freedom of expression to insult the sanctities of Islam.

What is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to where you are and who is in authority.

I spent my junior year in Switzerland. On the way back home, I spent some time in England, and I remember going to Hyde Park Corner. And there was a Roman Catholic priest in his collar, standing on a soapbox, preaching the Catholic faith and being heckled by a group. And I thought, 'My goodness.' I thought that was admirable.

Therefore we Christians, in turn, are obliged not to tolerate their wanton and conscious blasphemy.

In our day, you can mock religion in public and even get funds for doing it. But you can't show respect for religion in public - or you risk being hauled into court.

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion - be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

There is much depressing evidence that the religious voice is required to stay out of the public square only when it is pressed in a conservative cause.

You learn in America to speak two ways. You learn in public discourse not to be very specific about your religious life. Or, if we talk about it, we'll find a secular way of doing it that will not be offensive to people of non-belief. So, that you go through life with these alternate voices.

Our legal and political culture has created a bias in the law that borders on censorship against reading, displaying, or quoting the Bible.

I'm speaking of the ability of people of faith to freely express their beliefs in the public square.

Atheists have just as much civil right to teach atheism as Christians have to teach Christianity; agnostics have just as much right to teach agnosticism as Christians have to teach their religion.

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.

The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.

Atheists have just as much of a right to the public discourse as any ... people of any religious faith in this country.

In Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings.

I think there is a predisposition among Christians that Hollywood is anti-Jesus or anti-Christianity. I was warned I'd have to fight to maintain the freedom to express my beliefs. It's an unfair stereotype, and so far that's been the farthest from the truth. While everyone I work with may not share my beliefs, I have been surrounded by nothing but support.

From the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them... It is not the business of government to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine.

What is dangerous about the far right is not that it takes religion seriously - most of us do - but rather that it condemns all other spiritual choices - the Buddhist, the Jew, the Muslim, and many others who consider themselves to be good Christians. The wall of separation between church and state is needed precisely because religion, like art, is too important a part of the human experience to be choked by the hands of censors.

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.

The time has now come to amend the Constitution to restore freedom of speech for America's people of faith.