If people believe that they are marrying out of love and free choice rather than out of duty, they are more likely to decide, if love should die, that the free choice to join together is no more significant than the free choice to part, and to look for love elsewhere; those married out of duty expect less love to begin with, and what duty has brought together, duty may keep together.

This trivializing rhetoric runs the subtle but unmistakable message: pray if you like, worship if you must, but whatever you do, do not on any account take your religion seriously.

In contemporary American culture, the religions are more and more treated as just passing beliefs - almost as fads - rather than as the fundaments upon which the devout build their lives.

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.

Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.

Richard John Neuhaus, in his well-known book The Naked Public Square, tells us that in America, the public square has become openly hostile to religion.

When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.