Battles between the Huguenots and the Catholics ensued under the reign of Charles IX, highlight in the bloodbath on St Bartholomew's Day, where anywhere between 5,000 and 30,000 Protestants were slaughtered. In 1581, Parliament passed a law in England in which conversion to Catholicism merited punishment as high treason. The First Amendment is the prime source to protect for this type of posing law in the United States. .
During the 1930's, the Federal Communications Commission began its policy of requiring the right to freedom to assemble to hold organization in opposition to government polices. The First Amendment protects the act of people demonstrating or gathering in public places to act on their beliefs in the open with demonstration Expression of speech is the marketing tool of getting the public to listen to ones own belief or observation. In 1976, the American Nazi party requested the permit to demonstrate in a Jewish community near Chicago. The town opposed that the First Amendment should not protect people of hate and violence. The First Amendment must be for everyone and not just for one group. Just recently, in Chicago, laws were passed to breakup the gathering of young people on street corners, if the belief was to be gathering was gang-related. The both cases were ruled to be unconstitutional. The freedom of assembly protects the gathering of any group. The petitions say that people have the right to appeal to the government in favor of or against policies that affect them or that they feel strongly about. Freedom includes the gathering of signature in support of a cause and to lobby legislative bodies for or against legislation. Our own outward opinion is our strength as an individual.
The First Amendment was written because at America's inception, citizens demanded a guarantee of their basic freedoms. Our blue print for personal freedom and the hallmark of an open society, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition.