[Aeronwen]

>It seems more likely that America's current level of religiousness is toxic, allowing people to be ass-holes as long as they pay lip service to a professed religious ideal.

It's literally the religious freedom people colonized America to practice. People who considered being told to stop being assholes and imposing their religious ideal onto everyone else was religious oppression.

The level of toxicity hasn't increased, they just have internet access now.