No. Maryland was not the birthplace for religious freedom in the United States. Maryland's Toleration acts (1649) only applied to Christians, not Moslems and not Jews. Maryland's "tolerance acts" are not the model for United States religious freedom, that title goes to another state which pioneered separation of church and state earlier than the Maryland's toleration acts. Also, Maryland's toleration acts weren't left in place very long, they were only in effect for about 5 years before being repealed, in favor of religious intollerance by resurgent Puritans in the settlement.
Maryland was founded in 1632, King Charles I of England gave the charter to George Calvert who died before settlement began in March 1634. George Calvert's son Cecilius, took over and tried to make Maryland a home for former English Catholics who had been exiled and discriminated against in England.
history.com: - Maryland.
In 1632, King Charles I of England granted a charter to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, yielding him proprietary rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived from the land. The territory was named Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, the queen consort of Charles I. Before settlement began, George Calvert died and was succeeded by his son Cecilius, who sought to establish Maryland as a haven for Roman Catholics persecuted in England. In March 1634, the first English settlers–a carefully selected group of Catholics and Protestants–arrived at St. Clement’s Island aboard the Ark and the Dove.
The Maryland Toleration Acts were passed in 1649 as a decade of religious struggles between Puritans both in the Colonies and in England fueled religious conflicts with Catholic settlers in the Colony of Maryland; however, In 1654, the Puritans gained control of the colony and repealed the Toleration acts.
history.com: - Maryland.
Religious conflict was strong in ensuing years as the American Puritans, growing more numerous in Maryland and supported by Puritans in England, set out to revoke the religious freedoms guaranteed in the founding of the colony. In 1649, Maryland Governor William Stone responded by passing an act ensuring religious liberty and justice to all who believed in Jesus Christ. In 1654, however, the so-called Toleration Act was repealed after Puritans seized control of the colony, leading to a brief civil war that ended with Lord Baltimore losing control of propriety rights over Maryland in March 1655.
The American philosophic model for religious freedom is typically traced to the American Baptist Church and Roger Williams. Roger Williams was a Puritan minister who was banished from Puritan dominated Massachusetts for preaching religious tolerance and separation of church and state. Once banished he moved south down the coast and formed the settlement / colony of Rhode Island in 1636 (13 years before Maryland's Toleration Acts). That is where Roger Williams built the first Baptist church in the United States, as a reform religion to Puritanism. In Rhode Island church and state would remain separate, and people were not subject to laws which favored one religion over another. This model not of religious tolerance, but of a complete separation of Church and Government is the model that would be written into the American Constitition in the first Amendment on Dec 1791.
** The Baptist religion was already in existence in England and Holland dating back decades prior to Roger Williams founding of Rhode Island.
