What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.
quote by Richard Mentor Johnson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Dont You Think It's Time?
children have rights,
women have rights.
lovers have rights.
people of all religions,
and even atheists have rights.
people of all colors,
speaking every language have rights.
trees and rivers have rights.
cats and dogs have rights.
cattle have rights,
homeless people have rights.
prisoners have rights.
democrats and republicans have rights,
even socialists have rights.
the jobless have rights,
old people have rights...
and the hungry have
the right to be fed!
damnit! dont you think it's time?
poem by Eric Cockrell

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I don't know of many evangelicals who want to deny gay couples their legal rights. However, most of us don't want to call it marriage, because we think that word has religious connotations, and we're not ready to see it used in ways that offend us.
quote by Tony Campolo

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life.
quote by Jimmy Carter

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For Government To Be Fair!
for any government to be fair,
every citizen has to be
just as important as every other.
every citizen has to have equal rights,
whether black or white,
rich or poor, gay or straight.
whether they believe in the same god,
in another, or in none.
whether they speak english,
or another language.
whether they are educated,
or not!
every citizen has to have an equal chance,
for employment, for education,
for housing, for love and happiness.
and every citizen has to respect,
both himself, and others...
this government should be
a government by the people...
any leader should be from among the people.
government, small in tether,
large in affirmation!
we're not anywhere close to this in America!
we have been sold out by our own greed,
and have chosen in our apathy to follow the lie.
now it's come to a head!
what we do next determines if democracy works.
what we do next defines our level of humanity.
call it democracy, call it socialism,
it doesnt matter what you call it.
what it has to be is redemption...
what it has to bring, is freedom!
finally!
poem by Eric Cockrell

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Human Rights’
In a civilised land
That accepts duty to all
Citizens have rights
Some great, some small
This is how things should be
To those who value
Truth and fairness
And justice and decency
But those who treasure money
And the power of wealth
Seek to remove such rights
Through deceit and stealth
They claim that duty
Comes before such rights
But they accept no obligation
For causing another’s plight
Obligation before rights
Is their loud refrain
But fulfilling their own duties
Is something they distain
For rights are for the powerful
Whilst duty is for the poor
And decency and justice
The Country provides no more
Human Rights matter
To ensure justice for all
For saints and for sinners
For all people great and small
The alternative is ugly
With justice a forgotten myth
With power replacing fairness
And a society that is truly sick
poem by David Chalk

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When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.
quote by Marquis de Lafayette

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to ""create"" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
quote by William J. Brennan, Jr.

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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But today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such.
Equal Rights,2011
equal rights to live,
equal rights to love.
equal rights to believe,
to speak out, to stand up
and be counted.
equal rights to work,
equal rights to study.
equal rights to build.
equal rights to profess faith,
equal rights to pray.
equal rights to give...
equal rights to live,
equal rights to love!
poem by Eric Cockrell

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The whole of the Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
quote by Albert Gallatin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.
quote by Jim Wallis

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.
quote by David Duke

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Religious War
Religious war has been fought by rare person
person fighting for religion is ever winner
only the person took the help of weapons
are defeated, History is witness in weapon war
only the powerful weapons are winner, but
that can not be termed as Religious War
Weapon War is always blind but religious war
is always full of love and peace.
Weapon war is the matter of ego
Religious war is the matter of consciousness
Weapon war sheds blood but Religious War
It sheds love and affection
A person fighting for Religious War has to be
martyr some time but he becomes the reason
to be worshiped for ever
Weapon war spreads chaos and terrorism
Religious War spreads prosperity
Weapon war knows to split the society
Religious War knows to unite the society
Weapon war knows to enslave the human being
Religious War knows to make him free
from all kinds of slavery
Weapon war pushes us back to barbaric age
Religious war pulls us forward to civilized age.
Weapon war ends with destruction
Religious war ends with creation
Religion is the law of nature
which prevails all to be survived
poem by Ramesh Rai

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Chained Chained Women In The 'Land Of The Free
can you feel the jealousy emanating from the other first world countries
whose women watch the US government insist upon
no universal healthcare,
making its own citizens eternal slaves to HMO's & big pharma
&
if that wasn't bad enough,
they watch the religious tyrants beating their 'holy books, '
continuing
to feel as if it is ok to
deprive citizens of contraceptive coverage in the
health care packages being provided by employers across the country?
um,
this writer has a hard time doing so…for the record.
how long will this so-called 'democracy' make the women within its borders
suffer?
how long will the crazy crazy christians insist on
trying to keep women in a little cage where they cannot determine what happens to their own bodies?
as long as women are not allowed to gain access to contraception freely & easily,
they have to walk through a gauntlet of unnecessary bullshit
every time life decides to impede their progress by
throwing an unwanted pregnancy in the way of the struggle to get to where they want to be-
if they cannot climb the ladder,
they cannot achieve the financial status that would allow them to raise these kids in the
first place-
politicians,
who pretend to have religious affiliations so that they can get more sheep to
baaaaaaaaaaaa to the sound of their specific drum come november,
need to understand that there are more women in this country than men
&
this country is already overpopulated as it is-
why not better the lives of the women who are already here,
alive & trying?
poem by Andrew Delapruch

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And also a lot of Muslims are no more religious then the average Swede. For them it's natural that human rights come first.
quote by Bjorn Ulvaeus

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The liberty of the Press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman.
Send from Heaven Again
Send again, Hazrat! from Heaven
The message of justice and toleration!
I can no longer see this hateful hitting
between man and man!
Tell, them Hazrat! tell them all
Who pretend to follow thy divine call,
To love all men as the creatures of God!
And to regard all as the creation of God!
The virtue of Justice and Toleration,
Which was yours and which has made
Half the world to believe in you -
That virtue we have not learnt to value!
The slaves and dupes that we are,
The Queen and Hadith we merely hear!
Despised in the world we are
By disrespecting your commands clear!
The suffering humanity we hate,
But we say: We submit to God Compassionate!
[Translation: Mizanur Rahman]
poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam

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Every religious group, while perhaps a majority somewhere, is also inevitably a minority somewhere else. Thus, religious organizations should and do show tolerance toward members of other religious denominations.
quote by Russell M. Nelson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The bill neither confers nor abridges the rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil rights there shall be equality among all classes of citizens and that all alike shall be subject to the same punishment.
quote by Lyman Trumbull

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Note the difference between a right and a privilege. A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing. Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed. But, in the practical, the moment you admit a supreme authority, you have denied rights. Practically the supremacy has all the rights, and no matter what the human race possesses, it does so merely at the caprice of that authority.
quote by Voltairine de Cleyre

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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