American religious freedom was historically limited to Protestant Whites

Evidence

Even more than Catholicism and Judaism, Islam has historically been depicted as uncivilized, illiberal, and despotic. During the colonial era many Americans did not recognize Islam as a legitimate religion, considering it instead a false ideology followed by savages in Africa and the Orient. This theme reemerged in the post-9/11 era to justify excluding Muslims from American religious freedom norms. Despite American school lessons on the sanctity of religious freedom, deporting, prosecuting, and discriminating against Muslims is part of a long history of nativism that reserves the full exercise of religious freedom for White Christians. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 482 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

By exploring how religion racialized Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and Asians as socially non-White, this chapter argues that America’s commitment to religious freedom historically is restricted to those categorized as socially and legally White. This American tradition of racializing religion is grounded in an American national identity shaped by Protestant settler colonialism, xenophobia, and anti-Black racism. The Americanization movement arising from fears of espionage during World War I pressured Southern and European immigrants to abandon their cultures and languages to comport with Protestant Anglo-Saxon norms. Foreignness and non-Protestant religious identity signified a threat to national security. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 349 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Ironically, while social discrimination against religious minorities is politically activated when confidence in America’s institutions is at a low ebb, religious minorities’ assertion of their rights through a defense of constitutional liberties speaks to the vitality of America’s democratic institutions and their transformative role in assimilating minorities. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 285 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: American religion is intrinsically bound to gender and family but not to race — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 438; The United States was not founded as an explicitly Christian nation — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 115; The founding fathers held diverse religious views and drew on secular sources — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 38 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• American religious freedom has historically been reserved for White Christians #corroborates (0.97) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 482
• American religious freedom historically applied only to socially and legally White people. #corroborates (0.95) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 349
• Religious minorities’ rights assertions affirm rather than threaten American institutions #complicates (0.75) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 285
• Racial divisions historically eclipsed interdenominational religious divisions in American life #complicates (0.74) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 464