We are more thoroughly an enlightened people with respect to our political interests than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.

Our moral religious and political traditions are united in their respect for the dignity of human life.

I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular liberal people I ignored it for a long time. Lately of course just from a political perspective it's impossible to ignore.

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.

That means that every human being - without distinction of sex age race skin color language religion political view or national or social origin - possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.

I think the real problem for American religion are those minority of fundamentalists who try to identify political policies with religion.

I think that we are at a point in our country where we're trying to decide what role should religion play in the political arena.

It's not my place to tell you whom to vote for to take any political stand to tell you what religion to believe in. I'm an athlete. I can influence certain things but when I see other athletes and celebrities telling you whom to vote for I actually get a bit offended.

Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.

True Americanism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on race and religion.