"It's a free country! But what does that mean? The five liberties protected by the First Amendment are explained here in catchy, engaging rhymes. Vivid, kid-friendly examples demonstrate the meaning of freedom of religion, speech, and the press, and the rights to assemble peacefully and to petition the government"--

Religion is our most personal freedom. It's the first thing the Bill of Rights guarantees all Americans and the last thing we'd think the government could take away. Between wedding cakes and travel bans, public schools, and private employers, the role of faith in public life is constantly in the news. Americans of many different faiths, for many different reasons, are worried the government is going to interfere with their freedom to believe. Could...

"An overview essay, timeline, reference entries, and annotated bibliography make this book an indispensable resource for anyone interested in religion's place in school and in matters concerning the separation of church and state"--

Many Americans have been taught a distorted, inaccurate account of our nation's founding, one that claims that the founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state and that the country's founding political ideas developed without reference to Christianity. In this revelatory, rigorously argued new book, Mark David Hall thoroughly debunks that modern myth and shows instead that the founders' political ideas were profoundly...

"Sacred Liberty offers a dramatic, sweeping survey of how America built a unique model of religious freedom, perhaps the nation's "greatest invention." Steven Waldman, the bestselling author of Founding Faith, shows how early ideas about religious liberty were tested and refined amidst the brutal persecution of Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Quakers, African slaves, Native Americans, Muslims, Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses. American leaders drove religious...

"For over one hundred years, Thomas Jefferson and his Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom have stood at the center of our understanding of religious liberty and the First Amendment. Jefferson's expansive vision--including his insistence that political freedom and free thought would be at risk if we did not keep government out of the church and church out of government--enjoyed a near consensus of support at the Supreme Court and among historians,...

Tensions between religious freedom and equality law are newly strained in America. As lawmakers work to protect LGBT citizens and women seeking reproductive freedom, religious traditionalists assert their right to dissent from what they see as a new liberal orthodoxy. Some religious advocates are going further and expressing skepticism that egalitarianism can be defended with reasons at all. Legal experts have not offered a satisfying response-until...