Amendment 1 Quotes

1. "Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.[Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 1968.]"
Author: Abe Fortas

2. "First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (00-795), 198 F.3d 1083, affirmed.]"
Author: Anthony M. Kennedy

3. "As a consequence, the Court ruled that the limits on campaign spending violated the First Amendment, but it accepted the $1,000 limit on individual contributions on the ground that the need to avoid the appearance of corruption justified this limited constraint on speech."
Author: James L. Buckley

4. "...pointed out that the corporation enjoys the same rights as a living person under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This concept was upheld in 1886 by the Supreme Court in 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company' and has been a fact of law ever since. I emphasized to those executives that the corporation should also be required to accept the same responsibilities as those expected of a person; it too should be a good citizen, an honorable, ethical member of the community. In the case of international corporations, that community has to be defined as the world."
Author: John Perkins

5. "Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag."
Author: Larry Craig

6. "...Subordination of the state to Christian values is precisely what the early Puritans, even those in the tradition of the Mayflower Pilgrims, aimed to do. The First Amendment notwithstanding, large numbers of the American public (especially churchgoing Protestant Christians) have embodied this Puritan way of thinking, viewing America as a "Christan nation." Relatively recent poll data bear out the enduring character of these Puritan convictions. According to a Pew Forum poll held just prior to the 2004 election, over one-half of the public would have reservations voting for a candidate with no religious affiliation (31 percent refusing to vote for a Muslim and 15 percent for a Catholic)."
Author: Mark Ellingsen

7. "I never bought into the whole "second amendment" argument as it relates to the 21st century. Originally, it was put into place for the simple reason that our forefathers were fighting or had just fought off a government that threatened them with weapons. If those in the revolution had no weapons, there would be no United States of America, but rather New England of the New World. So, I understood why they thought it was so important."
Author: Martin Manley

8. "The 'takings' clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals."
Author: Michael Kinsley

9. "Every man — in the development of his own personality — has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man's essential nature."[Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment (1963)]"
Author: Thomas I. Emerson

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