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We have not ratified The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Among Women. I think 194 countries have signed onto it, but the United States has not. And CEDAW to the United Nations is what the Equal Rights Amendment or the women's equality amendment is to the United States. I think we should pass the women's equality amendment and a lot of these other fights would go away.
Carolyn MaloneyThere's no way you are going to get rid of the Second Amendment, there's no way you're going to get rid of the First Amendment, and people have to understand how important this is. But I think when they see more and more killings, we have to figure out, of course what we are going to do about it. And I don't think the criminal justice system has an answer.
Chuck ToddNowhere else in the Constitution does a "right" attributed to "the people" refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention "the people," the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset... The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms... The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it "shall not be infringed."
Antonin ScaliaEvery public elementary school ought to welcome Good News Clubs. Parents appreciate them; children love them; and the First Amendment protects them. The First Amendment requires that similar groups be provided with equal treatment. Religious speech is not a disability. It is our preeminent freedom.
Mathew StaverAt the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.
Joseph StoryOur bill of rights has been shredded. The fourth amendment specifically prohibits the kind of activities the NSA is involved in domestically. The fifth amendment prohibits any president or anyone else from killing anyone without due process.
Ray McGovernSomewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.
Roxane GayIt's time ... the Republican Party end the war on women they started. Whether it's the Blunt-Rubio amendment, personhood or attempts to repeal Roe v. Wade, we aren't going to let extremist politicians dictate to women what we can or cannot do with our bodies.
Debbie Wasserman SchultzIf the American press corps were as concerned about the Tenth Amendment as it has been protecting the First and trying to get rid of the Second, this would be a far different country.
Rich GalenWe cannot restore traditional American freedom unless we limit the government's power to tax. No tinkering with this, that, or the other law will stop the trend toward socialism. We must repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.
Frank ChodorovWhat I would like to see is for people to come together and say: Of course we're going to protect and defend the Second Amendment. But we're going to do it in a way that tries to save some of these 33,000 lives that we lose every year.
Hillary ClintonWe have a First Amendment for good reasons. We need a free press because without an educated electorate we cannot have a functioning democracy.
Jill SteinAny time someone carries a picket sign in front of the White House, that is the First Amendment in action
Julian BondA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.
Robert A. HeinleinBreaking the United States up into a number of pieces could be very good for the integration of those new nations with the rest of the world and the international law whose primary enemy is now the United States government. I think that it would be very good for democracy, for people to be within some hundreds of miles of their nation's capital, as they are in many other countries, so that they didn't have to travel thousands of miles to protest, to exercise their First Amendment rights, but that is the current state of affairs in this overly large, imperial nation.
David Swanson.......the truth is, while the FBI is hiding behind the 5th Amendment, the Unabomer is qualifying for Social Security as a terrorist. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.
James TraficantReligious people are now finding that the First Amendment is being used to herd them into a social ghetto, separated and walled off from public participation.
Pat SwindallThe fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that no private property shall be taken for a public use without the payment of just compensation.
Elton GalleglyI want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans. The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over! John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence, and I'm proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.
Rand PaulAny test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.
William O. DouglasReread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bears arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason,then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.
L. Neil SmithNothing's riding on this, except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f-k up again, I'm gonna get mad.
Ben BradleeBecause I support the Second Amendment doesn't mean that I want people who shouldn't have guns to be able to threaten you, kill you or members of your family.
Hillary ClintonAll these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!
Kurt VonnegutIt is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
Sandra Day O'ConnorGet rid of the guns. We had the Second Amendment that said you have the right to bear arms. I haven't seen the British really coming by my house looking for it. And besides, the right to bear arms is not an absolute right anyway, as New York's Sullivan Law proves. We talk about ourselves as a violent society, and some of that is right and some of it is claptrap. But I think if you took away the guns, and I mean really take away the guns, not what Congress is doing now, you would see that violent society diminish considerably.
Roger RosenblattWhatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.
John F. KennedyThe courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.
Ernest IstookAs a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.
Arlen SpecterIt is time we passed a balanced budget amendment and return this government to limited spending.
Newt GingrichBy requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.
John Paul StevensSince the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property.
Tim LaHayeThe right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.
Roger EbertIn recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms... If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.
Stephen HalbrookThe Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.
William O. DouglasWhat James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them.
Sam ErvinFirst off, I never favored a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion or to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Dennis KucinichIn the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.
John Paul StevensThe functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it. We are always told that things are going on well; Why change them? 'Chi sta bene, no si mueve,' said the Italian, 'let him who stands well, stand still.' This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people.
Thomas JeffersonBecause marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be redefined by activist judges. For the good of families, children and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.
George W. BushThe nice men in periwigs who came up with the Fourth Amendment were recklessly naive to imagine that branches of a government, each of whose power is enhanced when the power of the other branches grows, would serve to check one another.
Ilana MercerThe Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency.
Nat HentoffIn the States, you have the First Amendment. People feel the freedom to speak and the right to be heard. And they kind of push the message: "It's a free country." Everybody has the right to say whatever they want to say. But in the Middle East, culture is your guide. You have to ask, is it culturally okay to say something like that? Is it culturally okay, for example, to show a woman giving birth? As Arabs watching such a scene in an American film it's okay, but when it comes to the Arabic context, we're like, "How dare you?" So it's how you present it.
Mohammed Saeed Harib