Quotes About First Amendment

National security was invoked so freely that the First Amendment had become an empty promise.

Ive always wondered if people who block each other from expressing their opinions do so because they have so little confidence in their own. To me, encountering an opposing point of view is a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at stake... and develop my own point of view. But the first thing youve got to do is youve got to let people speak and youve got to listen. And thats what the first amendment is all about. Thats what really distinguishes this country from others.

President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience. I will defend religious liberty and overturn regulations that trample on our first freedom.

People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech.

I believe that the Framers of the Constitution made their intent clear when they wrote the First Amendment. I believe they wanted to keep the new government from endorsing one religion over another, not erase the public consciousness or common faith.

the democratic theory of the First Amendment—dedicated to preserving the vitality and robustness of public debate—requires that the focus be on the listeners and their need for information and critical perspectives, not on the moral qualities of the speaker.

Response: The First Amendment protects a speaker's right to speak and the listeners' right to listen. Hecklers who shout down speakers or disrupt proceedings illegally violate the rights of everyone present who came to both speak and to be spoken to.