First Amendment Quotes - Page 11

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

  Arlen Specter

  Rights, Important, Today

  "Joining Race, Specter Attacks the Right" by Richard L. Berke, www.nytimes.com. 1995.

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• 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.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Fighting, Winning

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• When the Jews were being persecuted by the Nazis in 1944 we passed the War Refugee Act, which focused on rescuing Jews, a religious group. But if the religious group is the subject of the persecution based on their religion, it's perfectly OK for a First Amendment-bound society to emphasize their rescue, just as it is perfectly OK to emphasize the fact that many, if not all of the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism, come from countries with a history of supporting terrorism.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Country, Religious, War

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I believe America went wrong in terms of respecting the First Amendment, the state of free speech on American college campuses and on the media and in academia.

  Milo Yiannopoulos

  Believe, College, Media

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• Tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. 'Choice' is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.

  Michelle Malkin

  Eye, Iron, Choices

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• The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.

  Fred M. Vinson

  Government, Ideas, Firsts

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• The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

  William O. Douglas

  Expression, Freedom Of Speech, Firsts

  "Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 21, 1966.

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• Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through "[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building," not by abridging First Amendment rights.

  Samuel Alito

  Country, College, Rights

  Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971, 3015-16, 2010.

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• The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise: the carrying into practice of religious principles and beliefs and convictions.

  Alan Keyes

  Religious, Exercise, Free Opinion

  Alan Keyes' Remarks at the Alabama Republican Assemblies Luncheon, www.keyesarchives.com. April 29, 2000.

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• Pat Buchanan... was fired by MSNBC for doing nothing more than voicing his rock-solid conservative thoughts on the otherwise failing network... The real message of the left is intolerance, zealotry, bigotry and hate. The left has no use for the First Amendment or the rest of the Constitution unless it fits their multicultural, euro-socialist agenda, which is failing all across Europe and everywhere it is practiced.

  Ted Nugent

  Real, Hate, Rocks

  Washington Times, February 20, 2012.

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• In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.

  John Paul Stevens

  Marijuana, Expression, Issues

  Deborah Morse and the Juneau School Board, et al., Petitioners v. Joseph Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 2007.

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• I think the reality is that copyright law has for a very long time been a tiny little part of American jurisprudence, far removed from traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, and that made sense before the Internet. Now there is an unavoidable link between First Amendment interests and the scope of copyright law. The legal system is recognizing for the first time the extraordinary expanse of copyright regulation and its regulation of ordinary free-speech activities.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Reality, Thinking, Law

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• Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.

  Roxane Gay

  Ideas, Freedom Of Speech, Lines

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• The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish lawyers for Poles, Jewish lawyers for Jews, Irish lawyers for Irish. It should be to produce good lawyers for Americans, and not to place First Amendment barriers against anyone.

  William O. Douglas

  Black, Firsts, Purpose

  "DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 23, 1974.

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• If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.

  Robert Kennedy

  Keys, Doors, Darkness

  Robert F. Kennedy (1964). “Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy”

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• The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.

  Hugo Black

  Military, Real, Government

  "New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713". Concurring opinion, 1971.

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• The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging.

  Hugo Black

  Mean, Simple, Law

  Concurring opinion, Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 1959.

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• But it's hard to talk about art. Maybe there should be a law against it, some First Amendment gag order like crying fire in a crowded theater.

  Stanley Elkin

  Art, Fire, Order

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• The notion that the First Amendment has no limitations whatsoever is balderdash.

  Trey Gowdy

  Firsts, Amendments, Notion

  "Congressman Trey Gowdy On Leaks: ‘I Thought All Reporters Aspire’ To Go To Jail" By Jack Mirkinson, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 12, 2012.

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• But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.

  William O. Douglas

  Philosophy, Government, Ideas

  "Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. June 21, 1973.

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• The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship.

  Joichi Ito

  Believe, Ideas, Rights

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• 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.

  Bernie Sanders

  Rights, Views, Political

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Where's Barack Obama when Christmas references are being erased from civic calendars? Is he crying out in defense of religious liberty and our First Amendment? Nope. He's as silent as a church mouse. And animosity toward religion continues to grow.

  Chuck Norris

  Religious, Church, Liberty

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• Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.

  Hugo Black

  Country, Party, Writing

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• The Framers of the First Amendment were not concerned with preventing government from abridging their freedom to speak about crops and cockfighting, or with protecting the expressive activity of topless dancers, which of late has found some shelter under the First Amendment. Rather, the Framers cherished unabridged freedom of political communication.

  George Will

  Communication, Government, Dancer

  George F. Will (2003). “With a Happy Eye, But...: America and the World, 1997--2002”, p.278, Simon and Schuster

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