Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or "not to practise a religion".
The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, the first law in North America requiring religious tolerance for Christians. It was passed on April 21, 1649, by the assembly of the Maryland colony, in St. Mary's City in St. Mary's County, Maryland. It created one of the pioneer statutes passed by the legislative body of an organized colonial government to guarantee any degree of religious liberty. Specifically, the bill, now usually referred to as the Toleration Act, granted freedom of conscience to all Christians. Historians argue that it helped inspire later legal protections for freedom of religion in the United States. The Calvert family, who founded Maryland partly as a refuge for English Catholics, sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers and those of other religions that did not conform to the dominant Anglicanism of Britain and her colonies.
Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nationality, culture, or belong to any other part of a particular population.
"Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions regarding the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The Damascus Affair of 1840 marks the real beginning of the diplomatic or international phase in the history of American Jews. The persecutions and tortures to which some of the most prominent Jews of Damascus had been subjected were reported to the Department of State at Washington, D.C. by the United States consul at Damascus. Immediate instructions, under date of 14 August 1840, were thereupon issued to John Gliddon, the United States consul at Alexandria, Egypt, by Secretary of State John Forsyth, in which he directed that all good offices and efforts be employed to display the active sympathy of the United States in the attempts that the governments of Europe were making to mitigate the horrors of these persecutions. Three days later David Porter, the United States minister to the Ottoman Empire, was instructed by Forsyth to do everything in his power at the Porte to alleviate the condition of the unfortunates. In both these communications the reasons for the intervention of the United States are based upon sentiments of justice and humanity, no American citizens being involved; in the communication to Minister Porter stress was laid upon the peculiar propriety and right of the intervention of the United States, because its political and civil institutions make no distinction in favor of individuals by reason of race or creed, but treat all with absolute equality.
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court reaffirmed that the United States Constitution prohibits states and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office, in this specific case as a notary public.
The Maryland Constitution of 1776 was the first of four constitutions under which the U.S. state of Maryland has been governed. It was that state's basic law from its adoption in 1776 until the Maryland Constitution of 1851 took effect on July 4 of that year.
Thomas Kennedy (1776–1832) was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and Maryland Senate. He was the leading force behind the passage of the so-called "Jew Bill," which allowed Jews to hold public office in Maryland.
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. As stated in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". George Washington stressed freedom of religion as a fundamental American principle even before the First Amendment was ratified. In 1790, in a letter to the Touro Synagogue, he expressed the government “gives to bigotry no sanction” and “to persecution no assistance." Freedom of religion is linked to the countervailing principle of separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
The Baltimore City Council is the legislative branch that governs the City of Baltimore. It has 14 members elected by district and a president elected at-large; all serve four-year terms. The council holds regular meetings on alternate Monday evenings on the fourth floor of the Baltimore City Hall. The council has seven standing committees, all of which must have at least three members. As of 2022, the president receives an annual salary of $131,798, the vice president gets $84,729 and the rest of councillors receive $76,660. The current city council president, Nick Mosby, was sworn on December 10, 2020.
Strange to Relate was the name of a weekly syndicated newspaper column written by Rabbi Philip R. Alstat, that appeared in the Jewish press for almost 40 years, from 1938 through 1976, the year of Alstat's death. It first appeared in The Jewish Youth Journal and The American Examiner.
Solomon Etting was a Jewish merchant and politician in Baltimore, Maryland. Before moving to Baltimore in 1791, Etting lived in York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was a trained shohet, one of the first in American history.
Religious qualifications for public office in the United States have always been prohibited at the national level of the federal system of government under the Constitution. Article VI of the Constitution of the United States declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States". The First Amendment of the Constitution also prevents the Congress of the United States from making any law "respecting an establishment of religion".
Jacob I. Cohen Jr. was an American banker, railroad executive, and civic leader in Baltimore who helped win the right for Jews to hold public office in Maryland.
Few Jews arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in its early years. As an immigrant port of entry and border town between North and South and as a manufacturing center in its own right, Baltimore has been well-positioned to reflect developments in American Jewish life. Yet, the Jewish community of Baltimore has maintained its own distinctive character as well.
Freedom of religion in Morocco refers to the extent to which people in Morocco are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups. The constitution declares that Islam is the religion of the state, with the state guaranteeing freedom of thought, expression, and assembly. The state religion of Morocco is Islam. The government plays an active role in determining and policing religious practice for Muslims, and disrespecting Islam in public can carry punishments in the forms of fines and imprisonment.
The history of African Americans in Baltimore dates back to the 17th century when the first African slaves were being brought to the Province of Maryland. Majority white for most of its history, Baltimore transitioned to having a black majority in the 1970s. As of the 2010 Census, African Americans are the majority population of Baltimore at 63% of the population. As a majority black city for the last several decades with the 5th largest population of African Americans of any city in the United States, African Americans have had an enormous impact on the culture, dialect, history, politics, and music of the city. Unlike many other Northern cities whose African-American populations first became well-established during the Great Migration, Baltimore has a deeply rooted African-American heritage, being home to the largest population of free black people half a century before the Emancipation Proclamation. The migrations of Southern and Appalachian African Americans between 1910 and 1970 brought thousands of African Americans to Baltimore, transforming the city into the second northernmost majority-black city in the United States after Detroit. The city's African-American community is centered in West Baltimore and East Baltimore. The distribution of African Americans on both the West and the East sides of Baltimore is sometimes called "The Black Butterfly", while the distribution of white Americans in Central and Southeast Baltimore is called "The White L."
Jews have settled in Maryland since the 17th century. As of 2018, Maryland's population was 3.9% Jewish at 201,600 people. The largest Jewish populations in Maryland are in Montgomery County and the Baltimore metropolitan area, particularly Pikesville and northwest Baltimore. As of 2010, Baltimore and Baltimore County was home to a Jewish community of around 100,000 people. The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. have a Jewish population of around 116,700 as of 2017, with the majority residing in lower Montgomery County. The Rockville/Potomac area is the center of Montgomery County's Jewish population, while sizable communities also exist in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area and in Silver Spring's Kemp Mill neighborhood. Smaller Jewish communities exist in Gaithersburg, Germantown, White Oak, Olney, and Takoma Park. Columbia, Frederick, Annapolis, Cumberland, and Easton are also home to smaller but significant Jewish populations.
Shinah Solomon Etting was the matriarch of one of the first Jewish families to live in Baltimore, Maryland.
The history of Antisemitism in Maryland dates to the establishment of the Province of Maryland. Until 1826, the Constitution of Maryland excluded Jewish people from holding public office. Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout Maryland due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas. Between the 1930s and 1950s, quota systems were instituted at universities in Maryland to limit the number of Jewish people. During the 2010s and 2020s, Maryland has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.
