I wanted to be an actress. In college I was a serious feminist and very political. I was determined to get one thing out of my career and that was respect. I didn't want money. I didn't care about fame.

I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain't really trying to pay no attention to ya know these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain't Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times what are you really showing all of this concern for?

For about ten years now the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power.

My friendships and relationships in the conservative world are not predicated on political correctness and enforced conformity of thought. They are based instead on mutual respect honesty and understanding - concepts many modern liberals should consider revisiting.

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.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

First of all my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience no matter what religion or color of their skin or situation in life.

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals including war.

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

My political ideas and things like that even my religion I try to keep close to me because it's a personal thing and I don't shove it down people's throats. I don't condemn any artist that wants to do that like the Baldwins. That's their choice. But in my world I'm just an entertainer.

A cult is a religion with no political power.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that on the one hand acknowledges the role of religion in society while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

Islam is a violent I was going to say religion but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race religion or political views that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.