Freedom, one of the main things the U.S. is supposed to represent, is slowly crumbling at the hands of legislators. Politicians use Christianity as an excuse to enforce laws that only satisfy them and are not for the greater good of the people.

The First Amendment mentions that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” However, conservative lawmakers have started pushing to demolish the separation of church and state in the U.S., even though there is no official religion. Their excuse? If you don’t like it, then leave.

The Constitution gives every U.S. citizen the right to freedom of religion. So when Christians practice their religion publicly and openly, that’s alright to people, no issue here. But when there are practicing Muslims or other religions in the U.S., some people obviously make it a problem when it doesn’t involve them.

The New York Times has an article about how four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico were shot and killed. Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. were up more than 20% in 2021 and in the first half of 2022, up 4.7 %.

Buddhist Door released an article in December 2020 article where six Buddhist temples were vandalized in Los Angeles. This article says, “Outside the temple, 15 stone Buddha and Bodhisattva statues were sprayed with black paint, and one statue had the word ‘Jesus’ painted on its back.” Is it really freedom of religion if people who don’t practice Christianity get oppressed? 

Conservatives and republicans use their faith to guide the decisions they make and base it off of teachings from the Bible. To them, if it’s forbidden in the Bible, then it should entirely be forbidden. To never be spoken of or brought up again.

One of the most popular examples of this is Roe V. Wade being overturned. This sparked a nationwide outrage, as well as caused republican lawmakers to scramble to pass laws to make abortion illegal. It doesn’t matter if the woman isn’t financially stable or mentally stable enough to give birth to a child or raise one, conservatives argue that since it doesn’t say in the Bible that it’s allowed, it shouldn’t be.

Five republican-appointed Supreme Court members voted in favor of overturning Roe V. Wade. Republican Views tells what Republicans believe about abortion, “..Republicans believe that a child is a “person,” and that its rights should be protected by law, from conception, not only when it is considered viable.” So given that republicans consider abortion murder when cells are forming, and there is no way for it to survive out of the womb at that stage, they vote to press those beliefs on women who might be of other religion, or not follow a religion at all.

It doesn’t matter if a woman doesn’t want to give birth to a child that they aren’t ready for. What matters is that one group of people believe it’s not morally right, so nobody gets to have a say over their own body.

Because the U.S is a “democracy,” the people are supposed to have power over the laws. But, so many people who aren’t Christian aren’t represented in the court. This gives the belief that it isn’t a democracy after all. Freedom of speech and religion are written into the Constitution, yet everyday republicans continue to push the idea that the U.S. is nothing but a country who must follow Christianity blindly. No matter what religion someone may follow, or if the laws that government officials make while being led by their beliefs take a negative toll on people who didn’t even ask for it to be made. This is supposed to be the land of the free, however the only “free” people are the ones pushing to have the church control the government again.