Public Arena Quotes

We live in a very pluralistic society today. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, atheists, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Christians like me. There are a wide variety of religious expressions in this country. I think they all must be treated with respect and none of them must be given priority in the public arena.

Under the First Amendment's prohibition of the establishment of religion, the Court has steadily made religion a matter for the private individual by driving it out of the public arena.

We're kind of coached to stay away from touchy subjects just because of the arena that we're in.

Any woman entering the public arena must be prepared to work as men work; she must justify herself not as a woman but as a citizen; she must attack the same problems, and be prepared to shoulder the same burdens.

You must try going out into the market place, where the mass of people spend their time

God is being siphoned out of the public arena. People don't even say God bless you when you sneeze anymore. I want to be able to lay a Merry Christmas on someone without its feeling like a political statement.

Under Sharia law, If a woman has money, she can invest her money. The thing is, what we are concerned about is, in the public arena, there's a difference between a man and a woman. We would have complete segregation in the public arena, but other than that, if she wants to go to the market, if she wants to go to visit her relatives or for medicine or for education. There's a whole host of reasons why she would be out and about but, what we are saying is she not obliged to work. That is the job of the man.

In the 1960s, various parts of the population became energized and began to enter the public arena to call for the rights of women, students, young people, old people, farmers and workers. What are called "special interests" - meaning the whole population - they began to press to enter the public arena. And they said that puts too much pressure on the state and therefore we have to have more moderation in democracy and they should go back and be quiet and obedient.

It is important to keep protesting, to keep forcing a conversation in the public arena. In any case, when you know what the right thing to do is, or that something must be said, it can be immoral and dangerous not to act.

But that's the whole point of corporatism: to try and remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run —which include production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything—are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.

I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You're not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I'm going to emerge then submerge.

Religious relativism is not the answer to disagreement between faiths; yet relativism, and a blurring of religious distinctions, all too often result when two deeply believing faith communities engage each other in the public arena on theological issues.

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.

In the late 1960s, the masses were supposed to be passive, not entering into the public arena and having their voices heard.

I've never liked talking about my personal life, ever. Ever since I was 20, I've lived in a kind of public arena; and there have been stalkers, blackmailers, death threats, physical violence and threats to friends of mine, colleagues of mine, to myself.

My father was very athletic. He was a life-of-the-party kind of guy - walked into the room and there was a presence about him. He was a great storyteller, just a terrific sense of humor. Having said that, he never put all of those talents or abilities into some public arena. He was never interviewed, never on television. His family was everything.

I have been a provoker and I'll probably always be one in the public arena for the rest of my life.

I have a Christian worldview and so it shapes the way that I view issues. I don't apologize for that, and I don't think people of faith ought to shrink away from being in the public arena.

I maintain the rather old-fashioned view that this is my work and it's in the public arena, but that doesn't entitle everyone to know what happened at home before coming here.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

A defendant on trial for a specific crime is entitled to his day in court, not in a stadium or a city or nationwide arena.

Society is indeed better off when we share knowledge with one another and have open debates about the issues in the public arena, with the hands and motives of the players identified.

Faith should be pulled into the public arena when it affects how we live. If it doesn't, it does no earthly good. What does my faith say about the fact that a girl can't be a nuclear physicist because she's black and from the inner city? My faith says, no, that's not what God intended. It pulls it back into the public arena the idea that there's got to be something fair for all of us.

Anytime you do something in this arena, whether it's public records or ethics, it's not like throwing a stone in a quiet pond. It's like throwing a boulder.

Everybody in this public arena makes statements and gets interpreted different ways.