America is known as the Land of the Free, and it’s true that we are given many more liberties than citizens of other countries.
In China, freedom of expression is considered only a privilege for the elite. Women in Saudi Arabia aren’t allowed to drive on the streets. In France, Islamic followers are banned from wearing hijabs in public institutions.

Still, while we are ahead of most of the world in almost all rights, are we really fulfilling the freedoms we promise to their full extent?

The first amendment alone provides American citizens five basic freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. The respect we have as a country for all of these freedoms could be taken into question, but the one I’ll focus on for now is freedom of religion.

Secularism, or the separation of church and state, is not nearly as evident in the US as it is in many other countries.

However, we often seem to restrict the spread of certain ideas or beliefs on the basis of keeping the government religiously unaffiliated or being politically correct.
Obviously, this limitation of freedom is unconstitutional and can often be fought against by citing the first amendment and demanding your freedom of religion. After this, the plaintiff may need to go to court before the defendant even attempts to fix it.

Despite the justice that often follows, the obstacles are too intimidating for most to even speak up. Knowing that fixing the issue will require several phone calls, meetings, and maybe even some time in court, the negatives may seem to outweigh the positives.

In a more specific case, if a student feels that a teacher is being intolerant of his or her beliefs, that student would have to feel pretty strongly about the issue to risk ruining a grade or switching teachers for it.

It’s even harder to remedy this situation if your belief isn’t so specifically labeled. In other words, you might be able to justify wearing a cross to school, but you’d have a much harder time telling the school board why you refuse to be vaccinated.

Even though this is a moral concern for some religions, certain issues seem to fall under a more political umbrella than others.

According to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Religious Discrimination Act “requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of applicants and employees.”

Despite this effort, employees are still being treated differently based on their personal beliefs.

In 2014, Mozilla CEO Brandon Eich was forced to resign after it was discovered that he donated $1,000 towards an anti-gay marriage proposition.
It’s understandable that Mozilla would let this executive go, with the fear that any affiliation with him would hurt their business, and therefore, their other employees.

Many Christian faiths believe that the Bible speaks against gay marriage. Therefore, preventing it would be consistent with their religious beliefs.
If freedom of religion was really practiced in America, would it still be considered okay for someone to be punished for following his beliefs in his private life?
If holding personal beliefs like this aren’t respected, it’s unlikely that more public displays of religions would be allowed either.

Many religions like Christianity and Islam believe strongly in Evangelism, or sharing their faith with others. However, many university campuses and other institutions ban this practice.

Some consider it harassment, even if it’s as simple as handing someone a Bible or inviting someone to church.

Where these freedoms start to get dicey is when we try to decide what counts as a religion. The US Supreme Court has yet to decide on a satisfactory definition for the term.

Nonetheless, it has decided that ideologies unrelated to a god can still be considered religions. By this definition, Satanists could have just as much of a right to worship as Christians.

Ultimately, the freedoms of one person can only go so far before infringing on the rights of others. Therefore, a cult that believes in human sacrifices cannot use its religion as justification for murder.

The fact is that every American is given the freedom of religion, not the freedom from religion. If the practices of a religion are not harmful to others, it has to right to be exercised by its followers without facing discrimination.