The question isn't whether you have a good master or a bad master, it's to be your own master. That is the dignity of humanity.

You can't have it both ways. Either our rights come from God, as our Declaration of Independence says, or they come from human choice. If they come from human choice, then our whole way of life is meaningless, it has no foundation.

And when you tell me that somebody's skin color or gender is going to determine their prospects in this world, that is turning the clock back hundreds of years. Back to a time before this nation declared that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator; not by their ancestry, not by their skin color, not by their gender, not by Congress, not by the Constitution, and not by the laws

Harden our hearts. To the innocents in the womb and we have hardened our hearts. To the need for compassion and mercy and. Fellow feeling. And charity. And decency in this world.

Our founders understood that divine authority was necessary in order to establish a ground on which the weak, the defenseless, the powerless, the poor and the wretched would be able to stand, in the face of every human power whatsoever, and demand respect for their human rights and dignity.

Our leaders will serve the common good with better laws and better actions only when we serve it first, by casting better votes.

If we accept the logic of the Declaration, reverence for God is not just a matter of religious faith, it is the foundation of justice and citizenship in our republic.