The rise to power of the socially conservative Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi; AKP) in 2002 led many scholars, policymakers, and journalists to celebrate the emergence of a democratically-elected political party who challenged the “anti-religious” Kemalist establishment. 2002 seemed to mark a shift in religion-state relations in Turkey, away from a Kemalist agenda of laiklik that sought to block the free expression of religious belief, toward an AKP that sought to secure it. In many regards, these accounts were correct. Turkey witnessed the partial lifting of the ban against headscarves on university campuses, and the introduction of elective Qur’an courses in secondary schools across the country. However, the AKP’s relationship with certain minority religious groups, such as Alevis, highlights the limits of the party’s policies. A historically persecuted religious sect combining Shi’a Islam with Sufism, Alevis have become increasingly organized over the past thirty years as a rights-based movement, demanding that the Turkish state: a) recognize Alevism as distinct from Sunni Islam; b) legalize and subsidize Alevi places of worship; and c) include Alevism in religion textbooks. In 2007, the AKP inaugurated the “Alevi Opening,” an unprecedented effort to systematically address these demands. Six years later, however, the AKP government has yet to grant Alevis their demands in full, and opposition parties, such as the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi; CHP) and the Kurdish Democracy and Peace Party (Bar?? ve Demokrasi Partisi; BDP), have criticized the lack of progress. Domestic and international media outlets have joined their ranks, exemplified in the August 2012 Economist article, “The Ephemeral Alevi Opening.” In this article, I examine parliamentary debates on the Alevi matter from 2002 to 2012 and show that far from being representatives of change, as many scholars contend, the AKP has demonstrated marked similarities to Kemalists in their approach to religion-state relations. In particular, I demonstrate how the AKP privileges a particular interpretation of Islam, as Kemalists have done for decades; how this interpretation of Islam is intended to be a vehicle for national unification; how the AKP reserves the right to promote national unity through religion; and how the promotion of a particular Islam excludes nonconforming beliefs and institutions. Ultimately, the Alevi case casts doubt on the extent to which Turkey is moving in a direction of religious freedom for all, an essential feature of any democratic system.