Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on Gov. Rick Perry and his prayer and fasting rally in Houston last Saturday.
Perry achieved his goal today. He drove almost every major religious right leader and group into his corral.
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San Antonio Express-News columnist O. Ricardo Pimentel, on Gov. Rick Perry’s use of faith as he prepares to enter the 2012 presidential race.
At “The Response,” Perry said God’s “agenda is not a political agenda. His agenda is a salvation agenda.” He said God is “wise enough not to be affiliated with any political party.” Wise words. But when spoken by a politician who mixes politics and religion with calculated ease, the sincerity is not entirely believable.
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Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, in comments to a reporter during last Saturday’s prayer and fasting rally his group helped organize in conjunction with Gov. Rick Perry.
This is exactly what the founders wanted, what you see here today. … Our founders believed that our public policy should be aligned with the laws of nature and the laws of God. … Marriage is one of those things. Marriage is between one man and one woman, and we tamper with that at our peril.
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U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, telling the authors of Texas’ abortion sonogram law, state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, and state Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, that they could not intervene in a lawsuit challenging the new law.
Both parties in this case are well-represented by competent and diligent counsel, and neither they nor this Court needs assistance from Senator Patrick or Representative MIller — particularly when much of their ‘assistance’ is nothing more than thinly-veiled rhetoric … This is a federal lawsuit about the constitutionality of a statute, not a soapbox for politicians or a sounding board for public opinion.
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Comedian Stephen Colbert, in a television ad running in Iowa that is paid for by a political action committee created by Colbert to mock the Supreme Court decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
That’s Parry with an ‘A’ for ‘America.’ With an ‘A’ for ‘Iowa.’
The words “church and state” are not in the Constitution. Here is the quote which should be getting posted and promoted everywhere across the USA: “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history,” James Madison, c. 1817, William and Mary Quarterly 3:555.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb7SbUWw9dM
While it may be true that the exact phrase “Church and State” (and the separation thereof) is not in the Constitution, it shows up broadly in various cases. This fact is almost as important, if not much more so, than whether or not it’s in the Constitution itself. I think the word that all the legal eagles use is “precedent.”