. . .
Again, this is modern corruption. Religion, as understood in the 18th century, pretty much just referred to Christianity and Judaism, and the clauses in the US Constitution were about prohibiting the US Federal government from favoring one flavor of Christianity over others, either by prohibiting practices or by choose a single Church to be the Established Church. These were practical consideration since in the early US no one form of Protestantism was nationally dominate, different regions had different dominate Christian Churches along with a wide variety of minority Christians and a small, but acknowledged, Jewish population.
Throughout the 19th century the Courts and States had no qualms with passing laws against the religious practices of what were deemed non-Christians. See, for instance, the early history of Mormonism for an example of how a near-Christian cult was treated. Heck Jehovah's Witnesses, another near-Christian religion, were systemically prosecuted via laws into the 20th century when they basically managed to begin to change the understanding of what Freedom of Religion even WAS and got the highly progressive mid-20th century US Supreme Court to shift its definition while ALSO in effect making secularism into the established religion of the US Government.
And yes, Freedom of Speech has always been about the ability to say TRUE things and OPINIONS. The US has long had slander, libel, and perjury laws that have never been considered to be in tension with Freedom of Speech. That said, the US tends to prefer to err on the side of more speech being allowed, and in many ways that's a good thing as if it was not for that historical norm the current regime would have had many more tools and more social acceptance of silencing people for saying true but unpopular things.
