<P> In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment . Freedom of religion is also closely associated with separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Roger Williams, William Penn and later founding fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson . </P> <P> The United States Constitution addresses the issue of religion in two places: in the First Amendment, and the Article VI prohibition on religious tests as a condition for holding public office . The First Amendment prohibits the Congress from making a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". This provision was later expanded to state and local governments, through the Incorporation of the Fourteenth Amendment . </P> <P> The October 10, 1645, charter of Flushing, Queens, New York, allowed "liberty of conscience, according to the custom and practice of Holland without molestation or disturbance from any magistrate or ecclesiastical minister ." However, New Amsterdam Director - General Peter Stuyvesant issued an edict prohibiting the harboring of Quakers . On December 27, 1657, the inhabitants of Flushing approved a protest known as The Flushing Remonstrance . This contained religious arguments even mentioning freedom for "Jews, Turks, and Egyptians," but ended with a forceful declaration that any infringement of the town charter would not be tolerated . </P> <P> Freedom of religion was first applied as a principle in the founding of the colony of Maryland, also founded by the Catholic Lord Baltimore, in 1634 . Fifteen years later (1649), an enactment of religious liberty, the Maryland Toleration Act, drafted by Lord Baltimore, provided: "No person or persons...shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof ." The Maryland Toleration Act was repealed with the assistance of Protestant assemblymen and a new law barring Catholics from openly practicing their religion was passed . In 1657, Lord Baltimore regained control after making a deal with the colony's Protestants, and in 1658 the Act was again passed by the colonial assembly . This time, it would last more than thirty years, until 1692, when after Maryland's Protestant Revolution of 1689, freedom of religion was again rescinded . In addition in 1704, an Act was passed "to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province", preventing Catholics from holding political office . Full religious toleration would not be restored in Maryland until the American Revolution, when Maryland's Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the American Declaration of Independence . </P>

How did freedom of religion develop in the united states