Civil Rights And Liberties

"No society is immune from the darkest impulses of man. And too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God. Three years ago in our state of Wisconsin, back in the United States, a man went to a Sikh temple and, in a terrible act of violence, killed six innocent people — Americans and Indians. And in that moment of shared grief, our two countries reaffirmed a basic truth, as we must again today — that every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination."

"Religious freedom does not mean that all religions are the same: it means that truth matters, and this is what religion and the sense of the sacred are all about. Every man and woman has the right to know the truth, but only full freedom allows them to progress in that direction."

"The same truth we trust to finally prevail is the same truth [Freedom of Religion or Belief] is made of. Religions and spiritual ways are not all the same. What is the same is the honest spirit that animates all believers in different religions. What is really true of all religions, including religions that a believer in another religion may regard as false, is the afflatus for truth that motivates them. No matter how different beliefs and believers may be, no matter how many conflicts they may have between each other, that single element, a thirst and hunger for truth, makes them similar, make their devotees sisters and brothers, make them human and unique."

"Religious liberty is concerned not with beliefs and doctrines, but with human beings and persons. It comes before any deed human beings may do, even in the name of their own right to truth gone astray. A person’s fundamental right to the truth of facts and to ultimate truth does not cease to exist because some people misunderstand or misuse it. This is why laws and judicial procedures of societies that aim at being civilized struggle to grant fair trials, proportionate sentences, and humane treatment even to inmates in prison cells—and differ from rogue states and regimes."

"Is there a risk that reducing the debate on religious liberty to different forms of state recognition, including the Italian “,” may implicitly or inadvertently confer to the state the power to grant to religious groups the right to exist? In practice, states do have such power in different countries. The question is whether giving such an authority to the state is morally and philosophically correct. Perhaps, a state should just watch over the compliance of its citizens with the laws (assuming the laws are just), regardless of their religious persuasion, and leave religious groups alone to live and self-regulate their lives. The state is not the source of religious liberty, although it should acknowledge and protect it."

"Religious liberty is the first need of human beings―and one much threatened in the contemporary world, even in places that one would never suspect: democratic countries."

"The enemies of religious liberty are not mysterious. They are the secularist states and their bureaucratic appendages—governments, fiscal agencies, administrative bodies; terrorist groups, that persecute in the name of some purity; mainline churches and movements that politicize faith and weaponize numbers to marginalize dissent; and the self-appointed anti-cultists, who brandish the word “cult” like a gun, firing it at anyone they happen to dislike—“cult” being a convenient label, endlessly reusable, infinitely abusable. But their power would be far weaker were it not for the media—the great amplifiers of prejudice, always ready to trade nuance for noise."

"The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts,-freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society."

"Yes, even our right of worship would be threatened. The Nazi world does not recognize any God except Hitler; for the Nazis are as ruthless as the Communists in the denial of God. What place has religion which preaches the dignity of the human being, the majesty of the human soul, in a world where moral standards are measured by treachery and bribery and fifth columnists? Will our children, too, wander off, goose-stepping in search of new gods?"

"The demand for a statement of a candidate’s religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization."

"To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker."

"One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against anybody of our fellow- citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm."

"There should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution."

"Moreover, it is well to remember that these movements never achieve the end they nominally have in view. They do nothing whatsoever except to increase among the men of the various churches the spirit of sectarian intolerance which is base and unlovely in any civilization, but which is utterly revolting among a free people that profess the principles we profess. No such movement can ever permanently succeed here. All that it does is for a decade or so to greatly increase the spirit of theological animosity, both among the people to whom it appeals and among the people whom it assails. Furthermore, it has in the past invariably resulted, in so far as it was successful at all, in putting unworthy men into office; for there is nothing that a man of loose principles and of evil practices in public life so desires as the chance to distract attention from his own shortcomings and misdeeds by exciting and inflaming theological and sectarian prejudice."

"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be non-sectarian. As a necessary corollary to this, not only the pupils but the members of the teaching force and the school officials of all kinds must be treated exactly on a par, no matter what their creed; and there must be no more discrimination against Jew or Catholic or Protestant than discrimination in favor of Jew, Catholic or Protestant. Whoever makes such discrimination is an enemy of the public schools."

"We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed. It is just as evil as to draw the line between class and class, between occupation and occupation in political life."

"The line of cleavage drawn on principle and conduct in public affairs is never in any healthy community identical with the line of cleavage between creed and creed or between class and class. On the contrary, where the community life is healthy, these lines of cleavage almost always run nearly at right angles to one another. It is eminently necessary to all of us that we should have able and honest public officials in the nation, in the city, in the state. If we make a serious and resolute effort to get such officials of the right kind, men who shall not only be honest but shall be able and shall take the right view of public questions, we will find as a matter of fact that he men we thus choose will be drawn from the professors of every creed and from among men who do not adhere to any creed."

"The antagonist in the major struggle of mankind for religious freedom has been Christianity, which accentuated the elements of intolerance included in its Hebraic heritage and supplemented them by the introduction of two new and potent incentives-the idea of a universal mission, a rigid dogma, the conception of the Church as an indispensable mediator between God and man."

"The proposition that the several States have no greater power to restrain the individual freedoms protected by the First Amendment than does Congress is firmly embedded in constitutional jurisprudence. The First Amendment was adopted to curtail Congress' power to interfere with the individual's freedom to believe, to worship, and to express himself in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience, and the Fourteenth Amendment imposed the same substantive limitations on the States' power to legislate. The individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. Moreover, the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all."

"Nec religionis est cogere religionem."

"When schools cloak spiritual practices in the language of science, they bypass parental authority and compromise the religious freedom of students."

"For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support…. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

"A genuinely democratic society requires a secular ethos: one that does not equate morality with religion, stigmatize atheists, defer to religious interests and aims over others or make religious belief an informal qualification for public office. Of course, secularism in the latter sense is not mandated by the First Amendment. It's a matter of sensibility, not law."

"If believers feel that their faith is trivialized and their true selves compromised by a society that will not give religious imperatives special weight, their problem is not that secularists are antidemocratic but that democracy is antiabsolutist."

"For democrats, it's as crucial to defend secular culture as to preserve secular law. And in fact the two projects are inseparable: When religion defines morality, the wall between church and state comes to be seen as immoral."

"Freedom of the press and freedom of religion are not only parallel rights—they are intertwined. When the media fail to investigate or challenge government[-initiated] narratives, especially against minority religions, it enables abuse. It’s easy to sell headlines that reinforce fear or prejudice. It’s harder to tell the more profound truth. But that is our moral duty as journalists."

"We must demand a journalism rooted in truth, not [in] tribalism; in context, not [in] caricature. Only then can freedom of expression and freedom of belief coexist—not in conflict, but in common cause for justice."

"Certainly, religions have called each other “false” and “heretic” for centuries. We live in an era of interreligious dialogue and civility, but conservative groups remain outside of it. …one religious leader’s religious liberty in criticizing other religions is another’s hate speech. The border is not well defined by the law, and difficult to grasp. These cases can only be decided on a case-by-case basis and taking context into account. Perhaps a Catholic priest in 2016 was treated in a kindlier way by [the] Brazilian courts than an Evangelical minister in 2023. But it is also possible that [the] Brazilian judges are taking into account the widespread violence and [undue] discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions, fueled by hate speech, prevailing in Brazil in the last few years."

"Today, in my decade-long experience of studying them, Jehovah’s Witnesses interact respectfully with people of all religions. However, as most other religionists, they are persuaded that their own religious organization offers the genuine path to salvation devised by God. If believing this is a crime, then it is a crime committed by most if not all religions."

"Matters of orthodoxy and heterodoxy should be left to theologians, clerics, and philosophers—not to state authorities, bureaucrats, or courts. When a government attempts to dictate the content of religious beliefs and restricts the liberties of its citizens based on this, it undermines the fundamental right of every individual to the essential freedom of religion, belief, or creed (FoRB), as well as the freedom of conscience."

"When a national or local government calls a religious group “antisocial” [or “cultic” or “dangerous” or the like], it jeopardizes [that religious group's] right to honor and reputation, incites [unreasonable] discrimination, and interferes with the citizens’ right of deciding which religion they want to join free from governmental pressures—who would want to bear the stigma connected with joining a religion officially declared “antisocial”?"

"Prosecutors, judges, and tax bureaucrats [and other secular authorities] cannot evaluate the truth or quality of spiritual doctrines. In a democratic society, citizens should be free to join the spiritual movements they like, and if they contribute money to them, these should be considered as tax-exempt gifts. Affirming these principles is essential to protect freedom of religion or belief. California courts understood this more than ninety years ago. Taiwan authorities should do the same in the Tai Ji Men case."

"Why did a reaction hostile to religious liberty manifest itself almost at the same time in France, Japan, Taiwan, and other democratic countries (but not all) in the late 1980s and 1990s? Obviously, there is not a single answer, but a look at the context may help."

"We do not believe that anti-FoRB and pro-FoRB positions should be considered as equally respectable in a report about religious liberty. Frankly, we would have preferred a coverage of the Japanese situation consistent with the traditional American position that regards stigmatization of certain groups as “cults” as bigotry, a position reiterated on the sections on Russia and China of the same 2023 report."

"… when religious liberty is under siege, doctrinal differences must be set aside. Churches must unite in defense of the freedom to worship, preach, and live by their convictions. … when values become crimes, liberty is already lost."

"China, Russia, North Korea, Iran… When we consider the worst situations of systematic violation of religious liberty we tend to forget one country, Cuba. The crimes of the Cuban [Communist] regime are somewhat overshadowed by the more bloody deeds of other governments, some of them sharing with Cuba a Communist and Marxist ideological background. Yet, Cuba should not be forgotten."

"[The Putin regime] is serving notice to the world that not only the practice of religious liberty, but even the possibility of discussing about freedom of religion or belief have been abrogated in the [Russian Federation]."

"I hope [the book Desperate Struggle: Survival from 4,536-day Confinement /『死闘 監禁4536日からの生還』] will serve as an opportunity for people to think about what religious freedom really means."

"Religion cannot be separated from people’s lives. Religious faith is human life. Faith is where people live!"

"The need of the moment is not one religion, but mutual respect and tolerance of the devotees of the different religions. We want to reach not the dead level, but unity in diversity. Any attempt to root out traditions, effects of heredity, climate and other surroundings is not only bound to fail but is a sacrilege. The soul of religions is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms. The latter will persist to the end of time."

"Superman: Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people-anyone who tries to tell you that a man can’t be a good citizen because of his religious beliefs-you can be sure that the troublemaker is a rotten citizen himself and a rotten human being. Don’t ever forget that!"

"The much-ballyhooed arrival of the Pilgrims and Puritans in New England in the early 1600s was indeed a response to persecution that these religious dissenters had experienced in England. But the Puritan fathers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did not countenance tolerance of opposing religious views. Their “city upon a hill” was a theocracy that brooked no dissent, religious or political. The most famous dissidents within the Puritan community, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, were banished following disagreements over theology and policy. From Puritan Boston’s earliest days, Catholics (“Papists”) were anathema and were banned from the colonies, along with other non-Puritans. Four Quakers were hanged in Boston between 1659 and 1661 for persistently returning to the city to stand up for their beliefs."

"Among Madison’s 15 points was his declaration that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every...man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an inalienable right.” Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. “Who does not see,” he wrote, “that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?” Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia. As a Christian, Madison also noted that Christianity had spread in the face of persecution from worldly powers, not with their help. Christianity, he contended, “disavows a dependence on the powers of this world...for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.”"

"Usbek can be as brilliant and satirical on occasion as his younger companion, but his aim is to probe to the heart of things, and he knows that truth will only reveal itself to a reverent search. To him all religions are worthy of respect, and their ministers also, for “God has chosen for Himself, in every corner of the earth, souls purer than the rest, whom He has separated from the impious world that their mortification and their fervent prayers may suspend His wrath.” He thinks that the surest way to please God is to obey the laws of society, and to do our duty towards men. Every religion assumes that God loves men, since He establishes a religion for their happiness; and since He loves men we are certain of pleasing Him in loving them, too. Usbek’s prayer in Letter XLVI. Is not yet out of date. “Lord, I do not understand any of those discussions that are carried on without end regarding Thee: I would serve Thee according to Thy will; but each man whom I consult would have me serve Thee according to his.” He insists that religion is intended for man’s happiness; and that, in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to our beliefs – not necessary even to attempt to convert them. Indeed, he holds that variety of belief is beneficial to the state. A new sect is always the surest means of correcting the abuses of an old faith; and those who profess tolerated creeds usually prove more useful to their country than those who profess the established religion, because, being excluded from all honours, their endeavour to distinguish themselves by becoming wealthy improves trade and commerce."

"They [the Pilgrims] believed in freedom of thought for themselves and for all other people who believed exactly as they did."

"When we, Constantine and Licinius, emperors, had an interview at Milan, and conferred together with respect to the good and security of the commonweal, it seemed to us that, amongst those things that are profitable to mankind in general, the reverence paid to the Divinity merited our first and chief attention, and that it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best; so that that God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government. And therefore we judged it a salutary measure, and one highly consonant to right reason, that no man should be denied leave of attaching himself to the rites of the Christians, or to whatever other religion his mind directed him, that thus the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to vouchsafe His favour and beneficence to us. And accordingly we give you to know that, without regard to any provisos in our former orders to you concerning the Christians, all who choose that religion are to be permitted, freely and absolutely, to remain in it, and not to be disturbed any ways, or molested. And we thought fit to be thus special in the things committed to your charge, that you might understand that the indulgence which we have granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional; and perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians. For it befits the well-ordered state and the tranquillity of our times that each individual be allowed, according to his own choice, to worship the Divinity; and we mean not to derogate aught from the honour due to any religion or its votaries."

"I for one would never be a party, unless the law were clear, to saying to any man who put forward his views on those most sacred things, that he should be branded as apparently criminal because he differed from the majority of mankind in his religious views or convictions on the subject of religion. If that were so, we should get into ages and times which, thank God, we do not live in, when people were put to death for opinions and beliefs which now almost all of us believe to be true."

"It is true that Calvin and his fellow pastors in Geneva were involved in the death of Servetus. However, it would be difficult to find any church leader in the 16th century who advocated a more gentle approach. Luther called for attacks on German peasants and wrote an angry tract against the Jews, called ‘On the Jews and their Lies'. Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich, supported the execution by drowning of the Anabaptist leader, Felix Manz. Sir Thomas More, England's Catholic Lord Chancellor, presided over the execution of those he viewed as “heretics” in England during the reign of Henry the VIII. Each country of Europe in the sixteenth century felt that defending its religious views involved taking strong measures against those who disagreed. Toleration and acceptance of doctrinal differences were simply not sixteenth ­century concepts."

"When Servetus fought with reasons and writings, he should have been repulsed by reasons and writings."

"… I learned something I’ll never forget: You’re never too young for your voice to matter. If I had stayed silent, nothing would’ve changed. But because we spoke up, now other students can wear messages of faith and love without fear of being silenced."