Constitutional rights lie at the heart of how modern Americans define themselves. And no rights are more significant in this regard than the rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, especially freedom of speech and free exercise of religion. That is as it should be – the First Amendment is and always has been a key structural pillar supporting our society and form of government. In recent decades, however, we as a people have largely forgotten key portions of the First Amendment. More fundamentally, we have forgotten why First Amendment rights are as important as they are. The purposes of this book are first, to rediscover those lost rights and their history, and second, to show why the real First Amendment remains entirely relevant to modern American society.