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  • Heidi Li Feldmanheidilifeldman@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:39 PM

    RE: mastodon.social/@heidilifeldma

    Been thinking more about El-Sayed and “Tommy”. Never forget that much of this country was founded by Christian religious zealots, people who put freedom of religion into their state constitutions and then the U.S. federal constitution not because they so much wanted people whose Christian sects differed from theirs to have freedom of worship but because the sects of them and their forebears were persecuted in England by King and Parliament. 1/

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  • Heidi Li Feldmanheidilifeldman@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:42 PM

    Some colonial and revolutionary era North Americans were less provincial. Some understood the Lockean realization that only by giving freedom of religion to all could the new states and later the United States avoid the perpetual, bloody wars of religion endemic to Europe, both continental and in the United Kingdom. 2/

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  • Heidi Li Feldmanheidilifeldman@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:46 PM

    Even fewer colonial and revolutionary era North Americans were robustly committed to freedom of conscience for atheists or believers in non-Christian faiths out of being atheists or non-Christians themselves. But the drafters of some state constitutions and of the U.S. Constitution were wise. They wrote capacious freedom of religion into bills of rights. They didn’t privilege Christian faiths over others. 3/

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  • Heidi Li Feldmanheidilifeldman@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:51 PM

    Whether they were committed to religious pluralism as a good in itself or as a prudent modus vivendi, the founders of the United States and many of the individual states in it not only enshrined in law freedom of religion, they enshrined the principle that people could not be deprived of other civil rights, e.g. right to vote, on the basis of their religious beliefs. 4/

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  • Heidi Li Feldmanheidilifeldman@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:53 PM

    Perhaps late 20th century Americans took for granted the deep and thoroughgoing religious pluralism protected by the federal constitution. We today certainly cannot. We must fight for it, with the grace and eloquent displayed by Abdul El-Sayed in his exchange with “Tommy”. 5/5

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  • NewsHundNewsHund@mastodon.social
    Oct 18, 2026, 7:17 PM

    @heidilifeldman Spot on. America really needs to understand — freedom of religion protects everyone from the government using any religion as a cudgel.

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