Political Quotes

“I thank Mr. Benishek. Again, you think about the dignity of the human person and, as he talked about, the importance of the right to life, just a fundamental right. Again, as I mentioned earlier, the first right in our founding documents, beginning with the first freedom being the freedom of religion. It is amazing to me how the freedom of religion in this country has informed the world and what took root in this country 240 years ago, which is the notion that we were not going to have an established church and that we were going to allow people to freely exercise their faith and how that has led to this proliferation in our country of the practice of faith. And comparing what is happening in the United States versus other countries, particularly in Europe where there was an established church, we know that more people go to church in this country than in Europe. It was the American experience, I think, that has really informed others, including the Catholic church, of which I am a member. I hark back to what President Washington had written to the Hebrew congregation: ``The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.…”