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The status of religious freedom in North America varies from country to country. States can differ based on whether or not they guarantee equal treatment under law for followers of different religions, whether they establish a state religion (and the legal implications that this has for both practitioners and non-practitioners), the extent to which religious organizations operating within the ...
Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978 0 674 97143 1; Waldman, Steven (2019). Sacred Liberty: America's Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom. New York: HarperOne.
Many early immigrants traveled to North America to avoid religious persecution in their homelands, whether based on a different denomination, religion or sect. Some immigrants came from England after the English Civil War and the rise of Protestant dissenting sects in England.
Ever since its early colonial days, when some Protestant dissenter English and German settlers moved in search of religious freedom, America has been profoundly influenced by religion. [36] Throughout its history, religious involvement among American citizens has grown since 1776 from 17% of the US population to 62% in 2000. [37]
Just 47 percent of Americans say they are members of a church, synagogue, mosque or other house of worship — the lowest rate in more than 80 years.
Whereas religious civil liberties, such as the right to hold or not to hold a religious belief, are essential for Freedom of Religion (in the United States secured by the First Amendment), religious discrimination occurs when someone is denied "the equal protection of the laws, equality of status under the law, equal treatment in the ...
Americans have been disaffiliating from organized religion over the past few decades. About 63% of Americans are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, down from 90% in the early 1990s.
In the winter of 1636, former Puritan leader Roger Williams was expelled from Massachusetts. He argued for freedom of religion, writing "God requireth not an uniformity of Religion to be inacted and enforced in any civill state." [38] Williams later founded Rhode Island on the principle of religious freedom. He welcomed people of religious ...