Remember to thank all those who help keep us free.
America has not been perfect with its freedoms. It took time to begin to undo the wrongs towards Indians, Blacks, and religious minorities among others. However, we continue to better ourselves.
Religious liberty has long been a troubled one for Americans. The country's first Thanksgiving is tied into a Spanish expedition to crush French Protestants in Florida. Plymouth Colony was a religious fundamentalist state of anti-Catholic, anti-Anglican dimensions. Maryland was founded by Catholics for religious freedom purposes but was overrun by Puritans who fled the establishment of the Anglican church in Virgina. These Puritans overturned the freedom laws in Maryland and made the colony officially anti-Catholic. Mormons had shoot on sight orders against them in Missouri. And Hutterites who fled to Canada to avoid being forced to fight in World War I had their cemeteries desecrated by farmers in South Dakota.
However, like the freedom not to be a slave or freedom to live where one wants, there are warriors for religious freedom as well. We thank these men and women and pray for them.
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