Quote

The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.

I would rather be erring on the side of common-sense pragmatism and doing everything possible so that I felt that no stone was left unturned in terms of trying to protect school children.

This issue is whether or not our government should be infusing religion into (schools).

Well I've been crystal clear that we should not have schools which are set up by extremists whether they're Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists or any other sort of outrageous and beyond the pale organization.

The last thing I would want to do is to create the impression that sectarianism came from only one side of the community.

Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence.

In America our public schools are intended to be religiously neutral. Our teachers and schools are neither to endorse nor to inhibit religion. I believe this is a very good thing.

What would happen if we finally succeeded in following the directions of nature and recognized that the great secret of education lies hidden in the maxim, 'Do not educate'?

I am not against Muslim schools. But as I believe in integration, I think we would be better off overall if we did not have denominational schools at all.

I'd like the United States to become what it was always meant to be, which is a secular nation - more publicly committed to reason, to improving understanding, and promoting education.