Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Mary Dyer left England to pursue her religious beliefs without persecution in the New World. However, once she arrived, she quickly realized the hypocrisy of the Puritan authorities, who persecuted her, even fashioning her tragic miscarriage as a "monstrous birth" in order to discredit her. Her execution, and that of many religious dissidents like her, carved out the space for the kind of religious freedom we so often take for granted today.

A full transcript of this show is available here: libertarianism.org/podcasts/portraits-liberty/martyr-religious-freedom-mary-dyer