OK, a small exaggeration. But this should be what his notes look like - all the presidents candidates and supreme court justices that vowed to protect the separation of church and state, Unfortunately for Mitt, the GOP will need several election cycles to claw it way out of the various holes it has dug with the shovel Reagan gave them. But if they adopted this sort of rhetoric it would be a start.
It is not the legitimate province of the legislature to determine what religion is true, or what is false. (Richard M. Johnson, 1780-1850, Vice President of the U. S. under Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841, in his second Report on the Transportation of the Mail on Sundays, 1830.)
Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God. (John Tyler, 10th U. S. President [1841-1845],
President Andrew Jackson did refuse to order a national day of prayer during a cholera epidemic (1832)....in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to "disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government." Letter to the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, June 12, 1832)
I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled. (Millard Fillmore, 13th U. S. President [1850-1853], in an address during the 1856 Presidential election,
Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom of opinion have always proved themselves intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others? (Robert E. Lee, 1807-1870, Confederate general, letter to his wife, December 27, 1856.
Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated. (Ulysses S. Grant)
We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion suffer by all such interference. (Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th U. S. President [1877-1881], statement as Governor of Ohio, 1875,
The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community. (James A. Garfield, 20th U.S. President [1881])
If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for public office. (Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U. S. President [1901-1909], letter to J. C. Martin, November 9, 1908)
It does not become America that within her borders, where every man is free to follow the dictates of his conscience, men should raise the cry of church against church. To do that is to strike at the very spirit and heart of America. (Woodrow Wilson, 28th U. S. President [1913-1921])
The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration. We cannot permit any inquisition either from within or from without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind of America must be forever free. (Calvin Coolidge, 30th U. S. President)
I believe in the absolute separation of church and state and in the strict enforcement of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I believe that no tribunal of any church has any power to make any decree of any force in the law of the land, other than to establish the status of its own communicants within its own church. (Alfred E. Smith, Governor of New York and Democratic candidate for President in 1928)
There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U. S. President)
As I say, not all of Jefferson's ideas were popular, though most of them were absolutely right.... He was also called an atheist because he didn't believe in a state church, an official church of the government, and in fact made it clear that he didn't much like any churh..... "It does me no injury," he said, "for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." (Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President)
I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute (John F. Kennedy,during the Presidential campaign, 1960)
I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office--and by my personal conviction--I am sworn to uphold that tradition. (Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th U. S. President)
I believe that prayer in public schools should be voluntary. It is difficult for me to see how religious exercises can be a requirement in public schools, given our Constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. (Gerald R. Ford, 38th President October 9, 1976)
Government is contemptuous of true religion when it confiscates the taxes of Caesar to finance the things of God. (Sam J. Ervin, Jr., 1896-1985, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, in an "Open Letter to President Reagan,")
I believe in the separation of church and state and would not use my authority to violate this principle in any way. (Jimmy Carter, 39th U. S. President [1977-1981], in a letter to Jack V. Harwell, August 11, 1977)
The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. (U. S. Supreme Court, Watson v. Jones, 1872)
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us. (Justice Robert H. Jackson, U. S. Supreme Court, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943)
Supreme Court Justice Rutledge stated in 1947 that the First Amendment was not designed merely to prohibit governmental imposition of a religion; it was designed to create "a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority...."
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. (Justice Hugo Black, U. S. Supreme Court, Everson v. Board of Education, 1947)
The nonsectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom. The sharp confinement of the public schools to secular education was a recognition of the need of a democratic society to educate its children, insofar as the state undertook to do so, in an atmosphere free from pressures (Justice Felix Frankfurter, U. S. Supreme Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education, the 1948)
... the problem to be considered and solved when the First Amendment was proposed was not one of hazy or comparative insignificance, but was one of blunt and stark reality, which had perplexed and plagued the nations of Western civilization for some 14 centuries, and during that long period, the union of Church and State in the government of man had produced neither peace on earth, nor good will to man. (Justice Prescott of the Maryland high court, Horace Mann League of the United States v. Board of Public Works, 220 A.2d 51, 60 (Md. 1966))
Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of nonreligion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion. (U. S. Supreme Court, Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 103 [1968])
Quotes are picked from Infidel.org.