Quotes About First Amendment

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.

So much for the First Amendment! The chief and primary expression of our constitutional rights is being trampled by a "right" that the framers of the Constitution failed even to enumerate, the right to untrammeled sexual practice.

Oliver Darcy is a perpetual victim. He is constantly advocating for people to be banned and silenced. As a member of the media, Oliver Darcy should respect our First Amendment right.

Our 1 million members across the country will be watching closely to see if the video game industry hides behind a First Amendment veil in order to exploit children for the sake of corporate profit.

In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.

Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals.

The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

After the church ceased to exist, an outfit calling itself the First Amendment Protection Society, Inc.—the largest operator of adult bookstores, topless bars, Internet porn sites, and karaoke cocktail lounges in the United States—intimidated

The majority does not need a special amendment. The only reason you have a First Amendment is to protect the rights of the minorities, of people who aren't the majority. People who aren't in power.

I am a firm supporter of the First Amendment, no matter the views expressed.

The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.

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.

We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don't have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character.

But by 1940, as the specter of war once again faced the United States, a reevaluation of rights and liberties, especially those relating to the First Amendment, had begun.

Third, the Court has never applied the "least restrictive means" test in a First Amendment free exercise case. RFRA and its progeny do not restore anything, but rather concoct a new, extreme standard (the burden of showing a compelling interest and the least restrictive means) against the government when it defends neutral, generally applicable laws.

I will endorse the Supreme Court's unfairly maligned opinion in Employment Div. v. Smith, and I will argue that there is no constitutional right to harm others simply because the conduct is religiously motivated. The Court's First Amendment doctrine is wise. Legislatures can exempt the religious from some laws, but only where legislators and prosecutors ask the hard questions and where the religious entities have borne the burden of proving that exempting them renders significant harm.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists, the Court stated that the First Amendment requires "'that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions.'" Thus, "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine clearly stated that it understood the "enormity" of the harm done to children where sexual abuse is "inflicted in the context of religious activities," and then provided a rote recitation of the principle that judicial examination of a religious organization's conduct is "wholly forbidden by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

We don't have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the first amendment so we can say some very controversial things.

The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.

The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.

The time has now come to amend the Constitution to restore freedom of speech for America's people of faith.

The First Amendment is not a blanket freedom-of-information act. The constitutional newsgathering freedom means the media can go where the public can, but enjoys no superior right of access.

These instruments can spread lies faster and farther than our forefathers dreamed when they enshrined the freedom of the press in the First Amendment to our Constitution.