The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as the 18th Century when it was written. One timeless lesson is that if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.
Interpretation
The First Amendment's lessons about religious freedom remain critical today.
In this quote, Anthony Kennedy emphasizes the enduring significance of the First Amendment, highlighting that the protection of individual conscience and belief must be upheld by the state. He warns that state-sponsored religious practices undermine true freedom by encroaching on personal beliefs, a foundational principle that defines a free society.
In practice
In a lecture on constitutional rights, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of the First Amendment.
First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.
We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.
Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line.
Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
It was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.
Are our lives truly filled with the presence of God? How many things take the place of God in my life each day?
Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.
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