The first amendment was passed by Congress on 25 September 178 and then ratified on 15 December 1791. The first part of the Amendment states that we have the right to have freedom of religion. Which basically means we can worship and be a part of whatever religion we wish. Now back then “freedom of religion” had a very different meaning, so to speak. We celebrate the migration of religious outcasts who came to America in search of "religious freedom," but we leave out the minor detail that they meant religious freedom only for themselves. They drove all those that disagreed with them from their midst—hanging them if they refused to leave—and resisted the pleas of the English government to be a little more tolerant. We celebrate the Founding Fathers, who had the insight to create a government that insisted on the separation of church and state, but we ignore the pesky historical fact that the term "separation of church and state" does not actually appear anywhere in the First Amendment, was first used more than a decade after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and held little of the same meaning then that we attach to it today. But anyways now we see it as a very important part of our …show more content…
This means that we have the freedom to speak whatever is on our mind. So we could say how horrible our president is without getting trouble, but basically we can express our opinions on any subject. In areas of the world where freedom of speech is not protected, citizens are afraid to speak out against their government, even when it acts illegally, for fear of being locked away in a cell for life. According to the University of Virginia, historically, men, women and even some children were put to death for daring to speak out against a tyrannical monarch, an unjust parliament or legislature or even a powerful