Barry W. Lynn > Quotes

“The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in religious institutions almost every day of his adult life but never once told a congregation or gathering there for whom to vote.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Liberty does not mean being given state sanction to force your own ideas—religious or otherwise—on other people. It does not mean being given a free pass from laws you don't like.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“The Supreme Court got it right in a 1973 case, PEARL v. Nyquist, when it said bluntly: “If the State may not erect buildings in which religious activities are to take place, it may not maintain such buildings or renovate them when they fall into disrepair.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Government is supposed to be neutral on religion. It has no business telling people how, when, or where to pray—or even if they ought to pray. Government does lots of things well, but meddling in our private religious lives is not among them.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“The real enemy of the Christian Right is not Americans United or the ACLU; it is themselves.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“lawmakers reacted to the report by cutting off the funds to continue the testing of students so nobody would know if there was any improvement. This even turns free marketism on its head: Create an expensive government program with taxpayer money, and when the data suggests the program isn't working, hide the data and make sure consumers”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“work by George Grant called Legislating Immorality, which called for the execution of all gay people, but was kind enough to qualify it in a footnote by saying that in our judicial system we would have to give them a trial first.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“For decades I've been told by my adversaries in the Religious Right that they only seek a “place at the table” for their Christian worldview—well, their version of Christianity, that is. But evidence has mounted recently that what they really want is something else entirely: to own the table, determine what goes on it, and force-feed everyone the same gruel they consume.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“one of my press comments may have been literally true: “This may be the biggest collection of theocrats in one”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“that is from a legal viewpoint what is technically referred to in the Latin as de minimis” and, in the equally technical language of common sense, as “batshit crazy.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Clarence Thomas, a man of no known intellect, did NOT have to be on the Court; spineless senators put him there.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“calling the Guantanamo prison “a gated timeshare community in the Northern Caribbean.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Thurmond Rule,” a largely fictional claim that in presidential-election years the party whose President is in office is supposed to sit on its hands and await the outcome in November. This is named for Senator Strom Thurmond, arch-segregationist to the end; Strom Thurmond, who never saw a wasteful weapons system he didn't want to fund; Strom Thurmond, who attempted to get John Lennon deported; Senator Strom Thurmond, who has no moral standing to be invoked for one blessed thing. If we truly believe that this is a real emergency because these vacancies are denying the opportunity for Americans to be heard when their fundamental rights and liberties are in jeopardy, then we should insist that the Senate not allow the Thurmond rule to be the last word.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“have used it in a highly offensive way and drenched it in fallacious, right-wing “Christian nation” pseudohistory. Worse, they've sponsored “Christians only” prayer events that exclude millions of Americans. (And by “Christians” they mean fundamentalists. Progressive Christians like me got nowhere near the microphone.)”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“I'm very worried about the future of separation of church and state: will it survive in a meaningful way? I'll tell you, there are a very large number of people throughout this country whose values, statements, and conduct appear to place them in some alternate universe governed by some constitution they apparently found while cleaning out their sock drawer. It is not the American “living” Constitution that reflects, increasingly, the search for individual freedom and justice: in other words, what the Constitution's purpose is.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Those five members of the Supreme Court found a nonsensical distinction; that doesn't mean that Florida state legislators or state supreme court judges are required to play the semantic games that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia did to reach the result they desired.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“The US Treasury is simply not a church building fund.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“The Constitution—the Bill of Rights in particular—was filled with “majestic generalities” precisely so that federal courts could breathe life into them as the reality of America changed.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“chaplains are here to serve the needs of servicemembers who ask for assistance—persons struggling with personal, professional, or philosophical problems they want addressed from a religious viewpoint. They are not hired to be roving missionaries to all persons with whom they come in contact.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“some of those who crafted the Constitution had serious doubts about tax-supported clergy. James Madison, for example, wrote that such employment was a “palpable violation of equal rights as well as Constitutional principles” and a “national establishment” of religion.10 He suggested that if Congress wanted chaplains to discharge religious duties, members should pay for them from their own pockets. “How just would it be in its principle!” he proclaimed.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Let's keep this simple: We separate religion and government in this country. That means the state has no business setting aside special days for prayer or other religious observances. Thomas Jefferson knew that. He refused to issue prayer proclamations during his presidency. James Madison issued a few under pressure from Congress but later in his life wrote an essay saying he wished he hadn't. Andrew Jackson followed Jefferson's lead and refused to issue such proclamations entirely.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“AU investigated the Religious Right's most common examples of the “war on Christmas.” Guess what? They're bogus! Two schools accused of banning red and green did no such thing. Another school was accused of rewriting “Silent Night.” In reality, it was putting on an eighteen-year-old play that changes the words of familiar Christmas carols to fit the play's secular theme of homelessness.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“The promise of anyone seeking to be on the federal bench, the Supreme Court in particular, must again be—not to serve as Chief Justice Roberts's “referee” but to do what is necessary to serve that one great overarching value of American democracy: to serve as a constraint on the otherwise overarching tyranny of the majority (and their political allies) for us and future generations.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Under the claim of “religious freedom”—the cover for a gigantic new fictional creature called “corporate conscience”—the rights of workers could be given short shrift once again. [More on this in chapter 8.]”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Furthermore, the National Day of Prayer has always been soaked in the kind of offensive “God and country” rhetoric that many of us find nauseating.”
― Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“We all should know what the Right's agenda is here: privatize education, kill public schools, and transfer the teaching of the young to private entities.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“On December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III, appointed by President George W. Bush, with the strong endorsement of Pennsylvania's staunch conservative senator Rick Santorum, ruled for our plaintiffs in a superbly written 139-page opinion that shocked many observers.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“Even a first-year law student knows that you can't curtail the right of one person to speak because other people get disorderly.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“What “value” is taught when school administrators thumb their noses at the highest court in the land and continue illegal practices?”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience

“governments and their official representatives will be strictly neutral on matters of religion: not hostile, not promotional, simply neutral.”
― Rev. Barry W. Lynn, God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience