Right to Practice Religion Quotes
By the beginning of the 21st Century, some Republicans had perfected the art of naming legislation completely contrary to its intent and effect in order to make opposition to it more difficult for opponents in the legislature. But nothing they ever did came close to the audacity of naming this legislation, The Toleration Act, as it was about the most intolerant legislation ever passed in America. Exactly what the motivation of the legislative drafters was is not known. One theory is that as a Catholic Colony, perhaps they really thought that they were being tolerant as they would not execute Protestants except Unitarians. In any event is was a low point in American history and was one of the examples that was before the Founding Fathers when they added the First Amendment to the Constitution. See {624142} for the text.
This law governed the territories outside of the original 13 colonies. This is the first chance that Congress had to legislate on religious freedom, and they guaranteed that there would be no territory that would be founded by or unilaterally controlled by any particular religion at the expense of the religious freedom of other people.
Islam is not alone. Even fundamentalist Christians and Jews are told by God in the Bible to kill blasphemers and idolaters. See {637504} for another concern with this clash.
