Freedom of religion was first applied as a principle in the founding of the colony of Maryland in 1634. The Maryland Toleration Act, drafted by Lord Baltimore, provided: No person or persons .. .henceforth will be in any way disturbed, harassed or despised for or with respect to his religion or in the free exercise thereof. The Maryland Toleration Act was repealed with the assistance of Protestant lawmakers and a new law banning Catholics from openly practicing their religion was passed. The animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the United States of America, also called "American anti-Catholicism", is the result of the English Reformation. The British colonists were determined to establish a truly Reformed church in the early American colonies. The Puritans "[left] England for the New World to worship in their own way." These children of the Reformation soon discovered not a "new" land but an old problem, that of factions within the faction. Many British colonists, such as the Puritans, fled religious persecution by the Church of England and because of this, early American religious culture quickly gravitated towards an anti-Catholic prejudice. John Tracy Ellis wrote that a universal anti-Catholic prejudice was "vigilantly cultivated in all thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia" and that colonial charters and laws contained specific proscriptions against Roman Catholics. In 1642, the colony of Virginia enacted a law banning Catholic settlers, and a similar statue was enacted in 1647 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1719, the colony of Rhode Island imposed civil restrictions on Catholics. In 1776, after the American Revolution and the entry into force of the Declaration of Independence, Virginia, Penns...... middle of paper ......es simply proclaiming the value of those teachings, other times making them teachings influence laws. “Religious right” is a term used in America to describe right-wing religious political factions (for example: Protestant, Evangelical, and, more recently, Christian and Catholic). Although the “white religious right” constituted only 14% of the American population in 2000, the year of George W. Bush's first election to office, this part of American society believes that the separation of Church and State is not explicit in the American system. Constitution and that the United States was "founded by Christians as a Christian nation." The religious right argues that the Establishment Clause prevents the federal government from establishing or sponsoring a state church (e.g. the Church of England), but does not prevent the government from recognizing the religion.