What did religious choice and freedom have to do with political choice and freedom in American history?

Answer 1

Hello: at the time of the founding of the United States political parties were much less consistent in the ideas they had. There was a shorthand that protestants were wealthy and/or landowners, while they expected Catholics to be recent immigrants and therefore poor. Throughout lots of American history Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses weren't allowed to vote-if not formally like in the founding-era colonies, then informally in the way voter suppression carries on to this day.

But above and behind your question is that the founding was overwhelmingly inspired by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment says that, among other things, we should tolerate other ideas and religions, and we should only care about who has the right answer as opposed to the identity of the person providing the answer. Because people like Hamilton and Jefferson thought freedoms like speech and assembly were important, they also believed freedom of religion and of participating in public life were also important.