In Their Own Words

What moved me to do what I did [slay Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh] was purely my faith . . . I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet.
Mohammed Bouyeri
Trial statement

July 12, 2005
Associated Press

Tancredo: . . . if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, um, you know, you could take out their holy sites . . .
Campbell: You’re talking about bombing Mecca.
Tancredo: Yeah.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. to radio host Pat Campbell
WFLA, Orlando, Fla.

Rocky Mountain News
July 18, 2005

Hawaii belongs to Jesus.
Lt. Gov. James Duke” Aiona
Christian rally

Honolulu Star-Bulletin
June 27, 2005

Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.
U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, R-Penn.
Catholic Online, July 12, 2005

[In refusing to back off above statement] I was just saying that there’s an attitude that is very open to sexual freedom that is more predominate [in Boston].
Sen. Rick Santorum
Boston Globe, July 13, 2005

People in churches across America had better get busy and demand the right kind of appointments to this court. There is no bigger issue on the Christian agenda.
Felon Chuck W. Colson
Focus on the Family Radio

June 28, 2005
New York Times, June 29, 2005

Lesbianism is about to take over our community.
Sisters making more money than brothers and it’s creating problems in families . . . that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians.
Rev. Willie Wilson
July 3 sermon
Union Temple Baptist Church
District of Columbia

Washington Blade, July 20, 2005

I hope the Supreme Court will finally read the Constitution and see there’s no such thing, or no mention of separation of church and state in the Constitution.
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Tex.
House Majority Leader
March statement
Chicago Tribune, June 23, 2005

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense–an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection–is not.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn
Archbishop of Vienna

New York Times, July 7, 2005

We ought to judge faith-based groups by results, not by their religion.
They can’t say only Methodists who drink too much can come to our program. ‘All Drunks Are Welcome’ is what the sign ought to say.
Pres. George W. Bush
Address to religious leaders

CBS News, March 1, 2005

George Will Defends Unbelievers!

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, Americans who answer “none” when asked to identify their religion numbered 29.4 million in 2001, more than double the 14.3 million in 1990. If unbelievers had their own state–the state of None–its population would be more than twice that of New England’s six states, and None would be the nation’s second-largest state:

California, 34.5 million.
None, 29.4 million.
Texas, 21.3 million.

. . . many Christians are joining today’s scramble for the status of victims. There is much lamentation about various “assaults” on “people of faith.” . . . But their persecution complex is unbecoming because it is unrealistic. . . .

Unbelievers should not cavil about this acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust.”

Columnist George F. Will
“The Christian Complex”

May 5, 2005

Freedom From Religion Foundation