“Today, I’d like to talk with you about how important it is for that freedom to exist for everyone, no matter how strongly we may disagree with another’s viewpoint.

“Tolerance for other people’s ideas, and the freedom to express your own, are inseparable values at great universities. Joined together, they form a sacred trust that holds the basis of our democratic society.

“But that trust is perpetually vulnerable to the tyrannical tendencies of monarchs, mobs, and majorities. And lately, we have seen those tendencies manifest themselves too often, both on college campuses and in our society.

“That’s the bad news – and unfortunately, I think both Harvard, and my own city of New York, have been witnesses to this trend.

“First, for New York City. Several years ago, as you may remember, some people tried to stop the development of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site.

“It was an emotional issue, and polls showed that two-thirds of Americans were against a mosque being built there. Even the Anti-Defamation League – widely regarded as the country’s most ardent defender of religious freedom – declared its opposition to the project.

“The opponents held rallies and demonstrations. They denounced the developers. And they demanded that city government stop its construction. That was their right – and we protected their right to protest. But they could not have been more wrong. And we refused to cave in to their demands.

“The idea that government would single out a particular religion, and block its believers – and only its believers – from building a house of worship in a particular area is diametrically opposed to the moral principles that gave rise to our great nation and the constitutional protections that have sustained it.

“Our union of 50 states rests on the union of two values: freedom and tolerance. And it is that union of values that the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th, 2001 – and on April 15th, 2013 – found most threatening.

“To them, we were a God-less country.

“But in fact, there is no country that protects the core of every faith and philosophy known to human kind – free will – more than the United States of America. That protection, however, rests upon our constant vigilance.

“We like to think that the principle of separation of church and state is settled. It is not. And it never will be. It is up to us to guard it fiercely – and to ensure that equality under the law means equality under the law for everyone.

“If you want the freedom to worship as you wish, to speak as you wish, and to marry whom you wish, you must tolerate my freedom to do so – or not do so – as well.

“What I do may offend you. You may find my actions immoral or unjust. But attempting to restrict my freedoms – in ways that you would not restrict your own – leads only to injustice.

“We cannot deny others the rights and privileges that we demand for ourselves. And that is true in cities – and it is no less true at universities, where the forces of repression appear to be stronger now than they have been since the 1950s.