Religious Liberty
The very first clause of the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of religion and prevents the government from favoring one religion over another.
The Massachusetts Bay colony was founded by people who fled religious persecution. But once they established their own communities, they did not extend freedom of worship to others, but drove away Anne Hutchinson and others who were accused of heresy. In 1660, Mary Dyer, a Quaker depicted in a statue on the State House lawn, was executed on the Boston Common for her religious beliefs.
However, as the number of different religious groups in the country grew, so did religious tolerance. By the time the US Constitution was adopted, people had come to believe that religious liberty could best be preserved if religion and government remained separate, and the state had nothing to do with promoting religion.
The ACLU vigorously defends the rights of all Americans to practice their religion – or no religion at all. Like the Founders, we know that for religious liberty to thrive, the government must not favor one particular religious perspective over another.
And so we have worked to ensure that our tax dollars, government spaces and public schools are not used to promote one particular kind of religion. We support the rights of individual students who want to pray in school or choose books with religious themes. But we oppose prayer and other religious activity that is sponsored by a public school or other government-funded body as a violation of the First Amendment.
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