Steven

“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”
― Christopher Hitchens