Stephen Carter Quotes

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.

We must not, under the pretext of secularism, chase God out of every public expression in society.

Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is entirely too secular. The fact that we have freedom of religion doesn't mean we need to try to have freedom from religion

Today the separation of church and state in America is used to silence the church. When Christians speak out on issues, the hue and cry from the humanist state and media is that Christians, an all religions, are prohibited from speaking since there is a separation of church and state.

In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.

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.

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

On the issues of religious liberty, the Supreme Court continues to scrape against the bedrock of the American spirit.

When our atheistically dominated Supreme Court removed the Ten Commandments from our halls, not a whimper was heard from the 95 million Christians in this country, who still don't realize that their religious freedoms are being systematically removed without a fight.

The ACLU sees the separation of church and state as so absolute that not a single religious word must be allowed to pass a schoolhouse door.

Removing religious symbols from public places is not neutrality. On the contrary, it sends a highly negative message - that religion is something shameful, embarrassing, or at best strictly private.

The modern concept of separation is an argument for a total separation of religion from the state. The consequence of the acceptance of the doctrine leads to the removal of religion as an influence in civil government.

Our culture's tolerance wears thin when religion intrudes on the public discourse... Our schools, courtrooms, and libraries set the tone for the entire society. The message they currently communicate is harsh and unambiguous: religion is offensive and should be kept out of public view.

I want to say to you is that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did not intend to drive a stake in the heart of religion and to drive it out of our public life. What they intended to do was to set up a system so that we could bring religion into our public life and into our private life without any of us telling the other what to do.

The arbitrary division between church and state... is used, as an easily identifiable rallying point, to subdue the opinions of that vast body of citizens who represent those with religious convictions.

I believe in the separation of church and state, absolutely. But I don't believe in the separation of public life from our values, our basic values, and for many of us, our religious values.

To imply that religious believers have no right to engage moral questions in the public square or at the ballot is simply to establish a Reichian secularism as our state faith.

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

We want the church and state to be separated. Only then will religion be able to fulfill its purpose — to comfort the misery, to console the grieved.

Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values - I absolutely reject the idea that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life.

With our goddess, the Pachamama, and it is not possible to continue having a monopoly of religious faith, only Catholic. We have therefore adopted the new constitution as a secular state where all religious beliefs will be respected.

If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.

The Secular City, having legislated and litigated itself out of any entanglement with the City of God, would be a hell upon earth .

No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance.

There's still plenty of people who have this deep conviction that America is a Christian country and ought to say so in its Constitution, etc. But that's not the legal basis on which we're framed. So the flourishing of religion, of religious diversity, is really built into who we are.